Museum of Musical Instruments of Leipzig University

The Museum of Musical Instruments of the University of Leipzig is a special place in Leipzig, Germany. You can find it on Johannisplatz, close to the middle of the city. This museum is part of the University of Leipzig and also belongs to the Grassi Museum, which includes the Museum of Ethnography and the Museum of Applied Arts.

It is one of the biggest museums for musical instruments in Europe, just like the ones of Brussels and of Paris. The museum has about 10,000 objects, including important instruments from many places and times. You can see items from the Renaissance and the Baroque periods, as well as things connected to Bach when he lived in Leipzig.

History

In 1886, a man named Paul de Wit from the Netherlands started a museum of old musical instruments in Leipzig. He later sold the collection to a paper merchant named Wilhelm Heyer in 1905. In 1913, the "Wilhelm Heyer Museum of Music History" opened, showing instruments from de Wit, the Florentine Baron Alessandro Kraus, and some keyboard instruments made by a company in Prussia called Ibach.

The University of Leipzig bought the collection in 1926, with help from the State of Saxony and a publisher named C.F. Peters. The museum opened in the New Grassi Museum in 1929.

During World War II, some items were moved to keep them safe, but many others were destroyed in a bomb raid in 1943. After the war, many of the moved items were also damaged or lost.

Starting in the 1950s, the museum was rebuilt and reopened. Over the years, the collection grew with new purchases and donations. Some parts of the original collections from de Wit, Heyer, Kraus, and Ibach are still there today.

The museum is part of a group called the Konferenz Nationaler Kultureinrichtungen, which includes more than twenty cultural places in the former East Germany.

Exhibition

The permanent exhibition shows important times in music history, especially from Leipzig, and tells about instrument technology. Some of the oldest items are from the 1500s. The exhibition is arranged in order and has 13 parts. Important collections include bowed, wind, and percussion instruments, piano rolls, items from Friedrich von Amerling, and a 1931 theatre organ. Visitors can also try out instruments in a special sound laboratory.

University connections

The museum has been part of the University of Leipzig since 1929. It has special collections for teaching and studying, and it hosts events for students from the University of Leipzig and the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig.