Robert Tiso, a master musician who plays classical music on water glasses, has released several new videos of his music, which is nothing less than mesmerizing.
I first encountered Robert six years ago and featured his “glass harp” in Water Ways Nov. 9, 2009, after corresponding with him by email. His biography is fairly well outlined in that blog post. I believe he was in Italy at the time.
It is worth mentioning again that Robert performed in a DVD documentary “Bach and Friends” by filmaker Michael Lawrence. View the Robert Tiso performance on the film’s trailer.
At the beginning of last year, Tiso moved to the United States, where he performed in Las Vegas as part of an eclectic production called “Vegas Nocturne.” The production was featured at Rose.Rabbit.Lie, a venue at the Cosmopolitan hotel and casino. He has since returned to Toscana, Italy, but still performs all over the world.
New videos released this year include:
The first two of these videos can be found on this page. The Water Adagio is from Bach’s violin concerto 2 in E Major. The first phase of the piece was used in a movie by Pierpaolo Pasolini for scenes in which Jesus Chris performed miracles, according to notes on the YouTube page. In this performance, the tone oscillations are created by tilting the table to make water move inside the glasses.
A whole series of videos by Robert Tiso can be found on his YouTube Channel, including an intriguing duet with Felice Pantone, who plays the mysterious musical saw. I remain as intrigued by Robert’s music as when I first heard it.
Later, I learned that Benjamin Franklin loved the sound created by crystalline glass. As an inventor, Franklin believed it was a waste of time to fill and tune each water glass when they could be made to play just as beautifully without water, provided they were made to the proper size. Read about his amazing invention in Water Ways from June 3, 2013.
