LP XXXVII--Instrument Museums

It was with great excitement, perhaps excessively, that I entered the Royal College of Music instrument museum. What a disappointment. The famous school, known for Benjamin Britten, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Malcolm Arnold, Gustav Holst, and many others, and is located across from Royal Albert Hall has a very small nearly inconsequential museum of mostly keyboards. Not that I didn't enjoy it, but I was hoping for something more substantial in demonstrating how instruments have developed in history.



Walking around the corner, I entered the fabulous museum known as the Victoria and Albert Museum. I love this museum with its emphases on human creative history in all cultures and time periods. But alas, no instruments. I was told that they closed the room due to lack of interest. So much for that idea. I remembered, however, a brief business trip to Indonesia a few weeks ago when I was told by a fellow musician about the great museum at the Royal Academy of Music.



A bus trip and a long walk down past Regents Park brought me to the famous school which boasts of alumni and faculty including E. Power Biggs, Simon Rattle, Elton John, Myra Hess, Dennis Brain, and many others. I entered the museum and was once again disappointed, although maybe less than before. The small museum with emphases on string instruments, had a few nice displays including a wonderful natural horn and the valved horn played by master artist Dennis Brain. A nice museum certainly, but nothing substantial. I must admit my iconic moment when I gave a personal tribute to Dennis Brain, one of the great musical influences of my early career.

The best instrument museum in London, ironically, is not found in a well-known museum nor in a famous music school but is found in a more remote, residential section called Forest Hill. It is the Horniman Music, and it contains the finest selection of musical instruments I have ever seen. The one flaw is that there are so many instruments in museum, it is a little overwhelming to categorize them. The comprehensive display reminds us that musical instruments did not just suddenly happen but instead have taken years and even centuries to develop. As humankind sought after sound through instruments, there were many experiments that occurred before an instrument "made the cut" and played on the team. The team is now an orchestra or a band or any combination of instruments that have arrived and are used on a regular basis.

But no instrument simply materialized into final form to be suddenly performed by great musicians. Each instrument used today has a history and scattered among those instruments are many discarded experiments that are fascinating, ugly, failures in music. From a study of the failures and the successes, we learn more about ourselves as humans in our struggle for the ideal sound. The museum also serves as a reminder not to rest in a comfort zone but to keep trying new things and new ways to make music. Perhaps our grandchildren will have an opportunity to hear a new instrument that does not exist today!

History and excellence turned the Ophicleide and the Serpent into scrap heaps. History propelled and improved the bassoon, the clarinet, the trumpet, and many string instruments. Time and a desire for orchestral tone color killed the hunting horn. Desire for purity of sound gave us the flute. All these things and more are seen and heard at the Horniman Museum--a museum for the people and one worth a visit when you are in London.