May 15, 2019 Comments Off on One of the world’s most treasured musical instrument collections is found in Brussels Views: 1226 Music, Nostalgia

Brussels, the city of waffles, Rene Magritte and rainy weather brought by the cold winds of the nearby North Sea, is also a city where city wanderers can discover one of the world’s most treasured musical instrument museums.

The Musical Instruments Museum (MIM) in Brussels is just opposite the city’s famed Rene Magritte museum both of which part of the country’s Royal Museums of Arts and History. Inside its premises, museum-goers can explore a variety of sounds, tunes, and instruments they’ve probably never before heard of. Which is precisely what you can expect from a lavish collection comprised of over 8,000 musical instruments brought to the Belgian capital from all around the world.

The edifice that accommodates the museum is an Art Nouveau Old England department store, constructed in 1899 by Belgian architect Paul Saintenoy. One more neoclassical building, dated to the 18th-century and the work of Barnabe Guimard enriches the museum complex.

The Art Nouveau exterior of the Musical Instrument Museum, Photo: Schwars1, CC BY-SA 3.0

Over the past two centuries, since the museum has been operational, it has acquired musical instruments from many different countries of the world. At the end of the 19th-century, the Belgian King Leopold II accepted a trove of Indian instruments from Rajah Sourindro Mohun Tagore, after which foreign imports to the museum surged. It was also during the 19th-century that the Belgian government conducted its first acquisition of a private musical instruments collection and stored the purchase at the museum premises.

The first curator at MIM was Victor-Charles Mahillon, one of the greatest musicologists of all times in Europe. During his lifetime, Mahillon managed to describe and classify hundreds of instruments. He was a great collector and was also well-skilled in constructing some musical instruments. His life work included expanding the collection at MIM in Brussels.

Antique instrument (serpent) on display at the Musical Instrument Museum in Brussels, Belgium, Photo: Robin Davis, CC BY-SA 3.0

Mahillon worked exceptionally well with investors, other collectors as well as prominent Belgian diplomats at the time, thus upon his death in 1924, he left behind a music institution filled with 3,666 items or what would be the greatest collection of musical instruments in the world at that point.

Some of the instruments found at MIM today originate from far-flung corners of the world. Authentic pieces that are thousands of years old have been traced to ancient Egypt, China, and Polynesia, to name just three ancient cultures. The oldest of the instruments can be seen at the first level of the museum, and going up to the next levels equals to time traveling, a musical voyage through different epochs of mankind. The fourth and the last museum level is entirely dedicated to a collection of magnificent keyboard instruments and pianos, some of which include the finest production from Belgium, England, and other European countries.

Trombone with seven bells / Adolphe Sax / Paris / 1876, Photo: Robin Davis, CC BY-SA 3.0

Among the rarest pieces found at MIM is also a luthéal used by Moris Ravel, the famous composer of Bolero.

During World War One, the museum stagnated as the network of donors and diplomats that supported MIM plunged. Therefore, in the period between 1924 and 1968 only 1,000 instruments were consigned to the MIM in Brussels.

The interest to sustain a world-class museum of musical instruments went up again during the 1970s, and many thanks to Roger Bragard, who is also the author of Musical Instruments in Art and History.

Beyond this museum, Brussels secures its prominent position in the world of musical heritage due to its historically-important production of woodwind musical instruments and as the birth city of Adolphe Sax who invented the sax.

We also thought to remind you of Belgian cities back in the day through paintings and old photographs



Tags: Belgium, Brussels, museums, museums around the world, music, Musical instruments Museum (MIM)