STUDIENGEBÄUDE ALPENSTRASSE
Alpenstraße 75
5020 Salzburg

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Mag. Barbara Hagen-Walther Bakk. Phil 
T +43-662-62 08 08-184
F +43-662-62 08 08-720


 

 

MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

History

Even in his time, the founder of the Salzburg Museum Vinzenz Maria Süss felt obliged in Mozart’s home town, the cradle of the great master of music, to include historical musical instruments in his acquisition activities. In an annual report of 1865, he made a list of the instruments collected hitherto and installed in the so-called “Instrumentenstube” – the instrument room – they already amounted to 172 items, which he numbered and augmented with literature, busts and portraits of pre-eminent Salzburg composers. Thus, he laid the foundation for today’s constantly growing collection of musical instruments.

Collection range

The collection range covers all instrument types from the sixteenth to the twentieth century and, in particular, provides an overview of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century instruments in Salzburg. It encompasses all kinds of instruments, from a lute from the workshop of Michael Gartner of 1524, later converted into a theorbo, all the way to an aluphone, a sound installation by Werner Raditsching, which resounded in 1993 in Rockhouse Salzburg. Moreover, the Salzburg Museum has been administrator since 1995 of the Cubasch Collection (wind instruments) and since 2001 the Wlaschek Collection (keyboard instruments).

Inventory overview

The objects in the Musical Instrument Collection are first and foremost documents of local music and cultural history. They tell us of the musical taste of past epochs, historical events and personalities, like the clavichord of Baroness Maria Anna von Berchtold zu Sonneburg, née Mozart, the fortepiano of Johann Michael Haydn, and the resplendent harp zither of Joseph Achleitner, the Kammervirtuose (virtuoso to the court) of Otto I of Greece. Besides keyboard instruments the collection contains wind, string, plucking and percussion instruments of diverse kinds and dates, also combination instruments. Positive organs, regals, harpsichords, clavichords and fortepianos find a place here, as does the “steel laughter” instrument. The Baroque art of making violins in Salzburg created many a masterpiece of string and plucked instruments, documented in names like Michael Gartner, Marcell Pichler, Ulrich Rämbhardt, Johannes Schorn and Andreas Ferdinand Mayr.  Furthermore, this type of instrument is represented by a rich inventory of violin bows, tromba marina, citterns, hammered dulcimers, zithers, guitars and harps. The overview of local music practice is completed by recorders, above all in the tenor and bass register, csakans, traverse pipes and flutes, pommers, shawms, dulcians, oboes and bassoons, also brass wind instruments mostly made in Nuremberg and Vienna, including signal horns, French horns, trumpets and trombones. Rounding off the collection inventory are drums, idiophonic instruments such as Jew’s harps, Turkish crescents and nail violins, also mechanical string instruments.

New acquisitions

The Salzburg-related focus specified when founding the collection is also the basis of the future collecting strategy. Besides historical instruments, at present, the museum also collects instruments made in our day and documents them for future generations.

Transparency and function

Selected objects of the Musical Instrument Collection find a place in the permanent collection show of the Salzburg Museum and are displayed in the various special exhibitions, according to theme orientation. The excellent state of preservation and the international exclusiveness of many an object also awaken the interest of external Museums. The musicological dialogue is at present being supported by active networking with the universities of Salzburg and, until 2018, by university sponsoring through the University Structural Development Funding of the Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy. The current projects give the new university generation access to representative examples of “Salzburg musical history” in the museum inventory and furthermore create visual sound documents of the historical musical instruments.
  

Image gallery

Harpsichord, Johannes Mayer, Stuttgart, 1619, wood (including ebony, walnut), mother-of-pearl, ivory, metal (iron, brass), quills, inv. no. MI 1015
Harpsichord, Johannes Mayer, Stuttgart, 1619, wood (including ebony, walnut), mother-of-pearl, ivory, metal (iron, brass), quills, inv. no. MI 1015
Viola d'amore, Johannes Schorn, Salzburg, 1701, wood (maple, fir), metal, inv. no. MI 1016
Viola d'amore, Johannes Schorn, Salzburg, 1701, wood (maple, fir), metal, inv. no. MI 1016
Steel piano, Jacob Peter Pirchl, Traunstein, 1805, wood (fir, cherry, ebony, maple), ivory, steel plates, inv. no. MI 1018
Steel piano, Jacob Peter Pirchl, Traunstein, 1805, wood (fir, cherry, ebony, maple), ivory, steel plates, inv. no. MI 1018
Fortepiano owned by Johann Michael Haydn, Johann Schmid, Salzburg, 1803, walnut, veneered, brass, steel, inv. no. MI 1035
Fortepiano owned by Johann Michael Haydn, Johann Schmid, Salzburg, 1803, walnut, veneered, brass, steel, inv. no. MI 1035
Military drum with the coat of arms of Prince Archbishop Count Hieronymus Colloredo, Salzburg, unknown instrument maker, ash wood, leather, hide, inv. no. MI 10399
Military drum with the coat of arms of Prince Archbishop Count Hieronymus Colloredo, Salzburg, unknown instrument maker, ash wood, leather, hide, inv. no. MI 1039
Small nail violin, unknown instrument maker, South German region, ca. 1800, wood, metal, inv. no. MI 1074
Small nail violin, unknown instrument maker, South German region, ca. 1800, wood, metal, inv. no. MI 1074
Double bass with the coat of arms of Prince Archbishop Franz Anton Prince of Harrach, Andreas Ferdinand Mayr, Salzburg, 1722, wood (maple, fir), metal, inv. no. MI 1084
Double bass with the coat of arms of Prince Archbishop Franz Anton Prince of Harrach, Andreas Ferdinand Mayr, Salzburg, 1722, wood (maple, fir), metal, inv. no. MI 1084
Swan neck lute, Michael Gartner, Balthassar Helm, Andreas Ferdinand Mayr, Salzburg, 1524 resp. 1597 resp. 1723, wood (pearl maple), metal, inv. no. MI 1087
Swan neck lute, Michael Gartner, Balthassar Helm, Andreas Ferdinand Mayr, Salzburg, 1524 resp. 1597 resp. 1723, wood (pearl maple), metal, inv. no. MI 1087
Recorder, Hans Rauch von Schratt, Germany, 1535, wood (beech wood), brass, inv. no. MI 1143
Recorder, Hans Rauch von Schratt, Germany, 1535, wood (beech wood), brass, inv. no. MI 1143
Cor anglais in F, Carl Augustin Grenser, Dresden, late 18th c., wood (cherry), brass, leather, gold embossing, inv. no. MI 1216
Cor anglais in F, Carl Augustin Grenser, Dresden, late 18th c., wood (cherry), brass, leather, gold embossing, inv. no. MI 1216
Contrabassoon, Joannes Maria Anciuti, Milan, 1732, wood (maple), brass, paper, glass, inv. no. MI 1247
Contrabassoon, Joannes Maria Anciuti, Milan, 1732, wood (maple), brass, paper, glass, inv. no. MI 1247
Bass shawm, W. Kress, ca. 1700, wood (pear wood?), brass, inv. no. MI 1253
Bass shawm, W. Kress, ca. 1700, wood (pear wood?), brass, inv. no. MI 1253
Clavichord owned by Baroness Maria Anna von Berchtold zu Sonnenburg, née Mozart, unknown instrument maker, Germany, late 18th c., wood, ivory, metal, inv. no. MI 1264
Clavichord owned by Baroness Maria Anna von Berchtold zu Sonnenburg, née Mozart, unknown instrument maker, Germany, late 18th c., wood, ivory, metal, inv. no. MI 1264
Double-action pedal harp owned by the harp virtuoso Maria Mösner, married Countess Spaur, Sébastien Érard, Paris, 2nd quarter 19th c., wood, metal, inv. no. MI 1314
Double-action pedal harp owned by the harp virtuoso Maria Mösner, married Countess Spaur, Sébastien Érard, Paris, 2nd quarter 19th c., wood, metal, inv. no. MI 1314
Ornamental harp zither owned by Joseph Achleitner, Kammervirtuose of Otto I of Greece, Ignaz Johann Bucher, Vienna, ca. 1860, fir, rosewood, veneered, inv. no. MI 1368
Ornamental harp zither owned by Joseph Achleitner, Kammervirtuose of Otto I of Greece, Ignaz Johann Bucher, Vienna, ca. 1860, fir, rosewood, veneered, inv. no. MI 1368
Tromba marina, unknown instrument maker, Austria, 18th c., wood (fir), inv. no. MI 1427
Tromba marina, unknown instrument maker, Austria, 18th c., wood (fir), inv. no. MI 1427
Bass trombone in D with the coat of arms of Prince Archbishop Count Paris Lodron, Sebastian Hainlein the Younger, Nuremberg, 1622, brass, inv. no. MI 1560
Bass trombone in D with the coat of arms of Prince Archbishop Count Paris Lodron, Sebastian Hainlein the Younger, Nuremberg, 1622, brass, inv. no. MI 1560
Trumpet in E, Johann Wilhelm Haas, Nuremberg, ca. 1700, brass, inv. no. MI 1569
Trumpet in E, Johann Wilhelm Haas, Nuremberg, ca. 1700, brass, inv. no. MI 1569
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