An 18th century silver-mounted ivory cornemuse by P. Gaillard with its silk cover has been purchased with assistance from the National Fund for Acquisitions and the Pilgrim Trust.
The Collection has published the first volume of the new Catalogue of the Collection. This prestigious volume contains nearly 400 full view photographs, close-up photographs and radiographs of a representative cross-section of the Collection. The photography is the work of Antonia Reeve, and was undertaken in 23 sessions in the period 1985-1989. The volume also includes an introduction to the fascicles of descriptive text which will follow. The Catalogue has been supported by the Radcliffe Trust.
The exhibition organised last year in conjunction with Bradford Art Galleries and Museums with the support of the Museums and Galleries Commission, Brass Roots: 150 years of Brass Bands, has finally been shown this year in Salford, London and Manchester.
The Honorary Curator represented the University at the CIMCIM (The ICOM Committee on Musical Instrument Museums) meeting in St Paul, Minnesota and Vermillion, South Dakota. He is a member of the Documentation Working Group of CIMCIM.
Plans for re-housing the Collection have progressed: building work is virtually completed on on new premises immediately to the north of St Cecilia's Hall in Niddry Street. A Museum Designer has been appointed to plan the fitting out of the premises as a museum and prepare presentation material for fundraising. His work has been awarded grant-aid from the Scottish Museums Council.
The Committee overseeing the Collection has adopted a Collections Management Policy in preparation for the Museum Registration Scheme which gives a detailed codification of the acquisitions policy.
The guitar by Josef Pages (282) was lent for the Exposicion de Guitarras Antiguas Españolas held in Alicante from April to June. The treble recorder (259) by Arnold Dolmetsch was lent for the Exhibition The Dolmetsch Years held in London in May.
The Collection has been used for teaching purposes by University Staff, in particular for courses in the Faculty of Music on the History of Instruments, Ethnomusicology and Musical Acoustics. Several parties have made organised visits, and various scholars and instrument makers have visited to study particular instruments.
Arnold Myers, 31st December 1990
[ Report for 1991 ] [ Report for 1989 ]
© Edinburgh University Collection of Historic Musical Instruments, 1990.
This article was re-published on 23 December 2022