Musical instruments are more than the mediums through which composers and performers express their talent. They’re captivating objects in themselves, witness to another form of expertise – the consummate skill of the craftsperson. The UK’s abundance of musical instrument museums spells it out.
If you have plenty of time and, ideally, your own set of wheels, making a countrywide tour of these wonderful collections pays rich dividends. One inevitably finds oneself spending longer than anticipated lost in admiration of all manner of things plucked, struck or blown; plus, of course, there is often an expert or two around to provide a few extra nuggets of information. However, we live in the digital age, and most museums can also be browsed comprehensively online by those who cannot get there in person. So, it’s time to get the map out and – physically or virtually – plan a few visits…
Greater London
First stop, a sight of the just-redeveloped Royal College of Music Museum () in South Kensington. This traces its origins to 1894, when the initial collection amounted to around 250 instruments, as curator Gabriele Rossi Rognoni explains during my
