Focht, Josef
Private Passion – Public Challenge: Musikinstrumente sammeln in Geschichte und Gegenwart
Whereas the enthusiasm of private individuals for collecting musical instruments remains undiminished, public museums are too often restricted in their desire to augment their collections by lack of storage space and money.
When the Rück Collection was sold to the Germanisches Nationalmuseum at the beginning of the 1960s, it was the last sizeable collection of musical instruments within Germany to pass from private to public ownership. In keeping with Rück’s example, private collecting of musical instruments forms the central theme of the conference, with contributions on historical and contemporary collections from all over Europe. In addition such topics as the function of musicology and related themes, such as the display of public collections are being addressed and complemented by the experiences of private collectors. Positions from the fields of literary studies, cultural management, transcultural music studies, and art history provide cross-disciplinary correctives and complete the conference proceedings.