The collection of musical instruments is by far the largest one of its kind in Switzerland and has nothing to fear from comparisons with some of the great European museums. It currently numbers some 3'000 instruments, almost all of which were made in Europe between the 16th and the 20th century. The collection is thus an ideal object of study for musicologists and anyone interested in historical performance practice.
The collection began 140 years ago in 1862, when the medieval collection acquired a table organ from St. Leonhard’s Church in Basel. Since then, several gifts, acquisitions and a number of very generous legacies have greatly enlarged the museum’s holdings: in 1927 the 48 instruments bequeathed by Maurice Bedot-Diodati of Geneva, in 1956 the 350 instruments collected by Otto Lobeck of Herisau that were given to the museum by Paul Sacher, and in 1957 the 25 string instruments belonging to the estate of the violin-maker Albert Riemeyer of Zurich. The collection grew exponentially when the 900 objects amassed by Dr. h.c. Wilhelm Bernoulli-Preiswerk of Greifensee to form what is probably the world’s largest collection of historical brass instruments and drums were bequeathed to the museum and yet another addition followed in 2004, when the Paul Sacher Foundation made the instruments used to perform works by Mauricio Kagel available to the museum on permanent loan.
Even a collection as rich and varied as this one is bound to have certain strong points. One of these is undoubtedly the brass instruments, since the collection boasts a number of very rare items such as the earliest dated fanfare trumpet of 1578 and all shapes and sizes of valve from the 19th century. Many of the instruments in the collection have a special connection to Basel and to the history of music-making in Basel, and there is a collection of very fine keyboard instruments which includes chamber organs, harpsichords, fortepianos and much else besides. Since the history of many of these instruments is well documented, they can be presented and explained within a larger context.
