CIMCIM Bulletin August 2018 CONTENTS Gabriele Rossi Rognoni: President’s message . 3 ARTICLES Heike Fricke: Music Museums, Composer`s Houses and Musical Instruments Museums in Germany: An Overview . 6 NEW DISPLAYS AND TEMPORARY EXHIBITIONS Natalyia Emelina: The Myth of Stradivari . 17 Bradley Strauchen-Scherer: The Art of Music: Renovated Galleries at the MET now open . 19 Bobby Giglio: News from the Museum of Fine Arts Boston . 22 Patricia Bornhofen: National Music Museum Gets Green Light on Building Expansion . 24 RESEARCH Pascale Vandervellen: Restoring the Piano-Viole: An Adventure in Sound . 25 PARTICULARS Congratulations and Contributions: Jeremy Montagu at 90 . 26 Heike Fricke: Interview with Darryl Martin from the Danish National Museum . 31 REPORTS Emanuele Marconi: New CIMCIM Website. 34 NEW BOOKS . 35 Cover Photo: A trio of trumpeters playing fanfares from the grand staircase of the MFA Boston, ‘Art in Tune’, 16 November 2018. DEADLINE FOR THE NEXT BULLETIN: 15/11/2018 Editor: Heike Fricke [email protected] Editorial Board: Christina Linsenmeyer and Arnold Myers 3 Gabriele Rossi Rognoni PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Dear CIMCIM Members, ter organised and efficient web-page, which pro- I am writing this message on my way back from vides a much needed platform to gather historical the annual meeting of the ICOM Advisory, the information (many past CIMCIM Bulletins, confer- event which brings together, usually in early June, ence programmes and publications are now availa- the Chairs of all ICOM National and International ble), as well as develop current projects. A similar Committees to discuss the programmes and achieve- process is now being launched for all other ICOM’s ments of this huge organisation, which includes over International Committees and CIMCIM’s proactive 40,000 members in 119 countries. The Advisory approach has been acknowledged by ICOM this year traditionally meets in one of the large halls of the in terms of budget allocation and support to strate- UNESCO palace in Paris and alongside the major gic projects. public events (particularly the General Assembly) it includes smaller meetings where the various compo- Three areas, in particular, emerged as critical from nents of ICOM – including International Commit- this process and the discussions that followed: tees such as CIMCIM – can discuss practical issues and compare strategies and achievements. 1.) Geographic expansion: the number of CIM- There are 30 International Committees in ICOM CIM members, both individual and institutional, and several of them overlap more or less extensively has been in constant expansion since 2014. Over with the interests and concerns of CIMCIM (a list the years, the number of countries represented can be found here: http://t1p.de/1mlj ): ICLCM, for has greatly increased, with the addition of areas example, gathers Literary and Composers’ Muse- never represented before such as Iceland, Lithua- ums, while musical instruments are often discussed nia, Georgia, Ukraine, Korea, Thailand, Chad, Sen- by ICME (Museums and Collections of Ethnogra- egal and Kuwait and more countries are in the pro- phy) and ICMAH (Museums and Collections of cess of joining as I write. There is, in other words, Archaeology and History). Others address over- a strong emerging community joining from Eastern arching concerns of all types of museums, includ- Europe, Asia and Africa which provides an unprec- ing ours, such as CIDOC (Documentation), CECA edented enrichment of perspectives, possibilities for (Education and Cultural Action) and ICMS (Secu- networking and project development and shared rity). expertise, but that also requires a constant reconsid- Although CIMCIM is one of the medium-small eration of the ways CIMCIM operates to guarantee committees, as far as member numbers are con- that new members can effectively participate in its cerned, it is nonetheless among the ones that are activity and that different needs and perspectives are leading the way in the commitment towards revi- fairly represented. sion and update of their identity, goals and reach. Each of this countries contributes different ways This activity, which has taken much of the time of addressing musical heritage within and out- of the Board over the past months, was initiated side museums, different ways of working, and dif- by the previous Board with the revision of CIM- ferent challenges that require sometimes urgent CIM’s acronym, and is being continued consist- intervention. ently through consultation with our membership One of the key opportunities that CIMCIM can (the members’ survey distributed in 2017), revision open is to foster integration and networking facili- of our Mission Statement and the delivery of a bet- tating international contacts, and one of the strong- TIME: 10th -16th September, 2018 4 Location: Wuhan and Shanghai Gabriele Rossi Rognoni ●Shanghai ●Wuhan est way that we have to do so is through our annual CIMCIM regular budget, a new dedicated alloca- meetings, which offer the possibility to visit muse- tion from ICOM and an extraordinary effort by the ums and collections and liaise with colleagues from local organisers for which I am particularly grate- all over the world. This year’s conference in Wuhan ful. A new and transparent allocation procedure was and Shanghai (10-16 September, http://t1p.de/t4za) developed, which supported the decision-making will be the first independent CIMCIM meeting in process since requests are more than the resources recent years organised outside Europe and north available. While this is likely to remain the case, America and a unique opportunity to explore the CIMCIM’s support is also sometimes able to lever- ancient musical traditions of China, as well as the age further funding from local governments, foun- current thriving trend in music museums in one dations and institutions, as happened this year with of the world’s fastest evolving contexts. I visited a special contribution from the British Government the conference venues in summer last year and was to support applications from Africa. thunderstruck by the warm hospitality, combined When direct participation remains impossible, with utmost efficiency and generosity in sharing digital networking is growing as a ‘second best’ and the marvels of collections that span over more than for this reason CIMCIM is investing in improving 2,300 years, managed and displayed by institutions its digital resources, now consisting in its web-site, that are growing at sometimes inconceivable speed. Facebook page, mailing list and newsletter. A small The programme for the conference is now finalised contract for the revision of structure and content and includes a rich balance of papers from delegates of the CIMCIM webpage (cimcim.icom.museum) of twenty nations as well as opportunities to taste was granted in 2017 and led to the launch of the delicious food and enjoy the beauty of cities and new page earlier this year. Emanuele Marconi, who nature, meeting museum colleagues, musical instru- undertook the revision, has also kindly accepted to ment makers and musicians. act as volunteer web-master for a limited period The cost of attending conferences remains one of time. However, communication remains a criti- of the strongest barriers, particularly (but not only) cal dimension for CIMCIM which requires com- in the effort of expanding membership to new mitted time and efforts and for this reason a posi- and emerging economies. Towards this considera- tion will be opened, immediately after summer, for tion, this year’s budget allocation to Travel Grants a communication officer who can help to manage has been greatly increased, thanks to support from the available platforms. An open call for expressions President’s message 5 graphic Collections) are being planned as part of the 2019 ICOM General Conference, whose pro- gramme is already well underway (1-6 September 2019, http://icom-kyoto-2019.org/). 3.) Content development: Two major projects have also been funded and are being prepared: a revision of CIMCIM’s approach to the preservation of functionality in music collections, and the publi- cation of an edited volume on Displaying Music in the 21st century. Hubei Provincial Museum in Wuhan, Hubei Province The first will gather current perspectives from of interest will be distributed before the end of Sep- museums dealing with functional objects within tember. and beyond the realm of musical instruments. It However, money is not the only barrier that lim- will compare how the broader world of museums its participation, and language is among the other is dealing with the concern of preserving functional major ones. For this reason the CIMCIM Board has objects (for us, the old question: playing or not play- formally acknowledged the importance of liaising ing), a matter which requires multi-disciplinary with Regional Alliances that are active at country- revision particularly in light of the new awareness or region-wide level and share the same goals and for intangible heritage and its role within museum concerns. These often offer a level of pervasiveness collections; the other will aim at bringing together a that is beyond the reach of any world-wide organi- snapshot of how music permeates museum galleries sation and can be the best allies in reaching a more and discussions, well beyond what we strictly define global membership: as a first step, a memorandum as music museums (or musical instrument muse- of understanding was signed with the Russian Asso- ums). Both projects will