The majority of the items originally belonged to the Habsburgs. The core historical inventory from the Ambras Collection, which includes musical instruments from the sixteenth century, provides visitors with information on the oldest extant European musical instruments. The collection has been continuously expanded through acquisitions, donations, and loans. The Matinees of the Collection of Historic Musical Instruments give visitors the opportunity to both see and hear the instruments, insofar as their condition allows them to be played.
Collection of Historic Musical Instruments
The Collection of Historic Musical Instruments is the world’s most important collection of Renaissance and Baroque instruments. The museum preserves, maintains, and presents numerous instruments that were played by famous musicians and composers. Special highlights include a unique collection of Viennese fortepianos, stringed instruments by Jacob Stainer, and woodwind instruments dating from the Renaissance. Visitors can experience the full soundscape of the composers of Viennese Classicism through the objects in the Collection of Historic Musical Instruments.
About the collection
Research projects on the collection
Resources
You can find relevant research resources here.
- Technical drawings are detailed documents and are used for organological research and producing reproductions of the instruments. For further information, please see the Collection catalogues
- In the long history of the collection there have been various inventories. The instruments were initially catalogued as part of the Kunstkammer (‘KK’). In the first inventory by Julius Schlosser, contractions were used to describe the instruments according to their origin (A = Ambras; C = Catajo; S = Schatzkammer [Treasury]; WR = Weltreise [world travels] of Archduke Ferdinand II; NE = Neue Erwerbung [new acquisition] or loan after 1806). The system still in use today was introduced in 1939 (SAM + sequential number). The Concordance list creates the link with the different inventory numbers.
Publications on the collection
Die Zinken und der Serpent der Sammlung alter Musikinstrumente
€ 19,95
Masterpieces of the Collection of Historic Musical Instruments
€ 19,90
Instruments from the Dr. Herbert R. and Evelyn Axelrod Collection
€ 1,50
Contact
Permanent exhibition
The Collection of Historic Musical Instruments has its permanent home at the Neue Hofburg Palace. Access via The Weltmuseum Wien.
The Collection of Historic Musical Instruments offers a captivating journey through European music history in the heart of the music city of Vienna. It stores, maintains, and presents numerous instruments played by famous musicians and composers. The valuable inventory of instruments brings to life the soundscape of the Renaissance, the composer-emperors of the Viennese Baroque era, and proponents of Viennese Classicism such as Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, in addition to the Romantic and subsequent eras.