New museum catalogue available now
After quite some time Museum Speelklok presents a new museum catalogue. Using themes such as music on the street, time and cafés and dance palaces, the catalogue takes you through the history of music machines from our collection.
Unique heritage
The music machines of Museum Speelklok are unique heritage: they bring history to life while playing. Moreover, they are testament to technical craftsmanship and tell a historical story. The Museum Speelklok collection spans almost 600 years of tangible history. This starts with the tower carillon and bells with music pieces from around 1550 to refined music boxes, large orchestrions, voluminous organs and sound installations by contemporary artists. The collection shows important moments in history based on how the instruments were made, from royal clockmakers to the industrial revolution.
All these fascinating stories can be found in our new museum catalogue, illustrated with images of pieces from our own collection and a number of other important international collections.
Stories about inventors and organ grinders
Who were the inventors, technicians and musicians of all these instruments? What drove them to constantly innovate? How did their collaboration go? And who were the buyers of the often very expensive instruments? How did they make their fortune? Some music machines visibly bear the traces of a colonial past through the materials or images used. It is not just the history of successful entrepreneurs who were able to use expensive technical feats to showcase their prosperity. It is also the story of French farmers who had to be able to hear what time it was everywhere in the farm. Or that of the organ grinders who passed through Amsterdam’s Jordaan almost every day at the beginning of the twentieth century.
‘Stories of music machines’ can be purchased in English and Dutch in the museum shop for 17.50.