About the Historical Instrument Collection
Birmingham Conservatoire's Historical Instrument Collection contains many fine examples of nineteenth and early twentieth-century wind and brass instruments, a collection of transitional bows by members of the Dodd family, and various other wind, brass, stringed and keyboard instruments from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries.
In 2008, Birmingham Conservatoire was awarded a substantial grant by the Arts and Humanities Research Council to catalogue the collection to produce a detailed inventory of the collection. The catalogue goes much further than a simple check-list of items, recording details of the instruments which will be of equal use and interest to the academic, instrument maker, and amateur enthusiast. Specifically, the project identifies all of the historical musical instruments in the Collection, examines existing inventories and checklists made hitherto, and identifies the existing instruments against this documentation, describes and measures each instrument and, where possible, establishes its provenance. Photographs were taken of the majority of the instruments, not only for purposes of identification but also to record and illustrate specific features of each instrument, whether common or unusual. Complementing these particulars are many sound recordings of some of the playable instruments in the Collection. These recordings were made by specialist performers in the field of period instruments. They also made numerous comments on the instruments from a player’s perspective. All of the specialist performers showed an admirable amount of patience when playing the instruments, most of which were not in as good a condition as their modern reproductions.For all enquiries regarding the Historical Instrument Collection and the HIC website, please contact the Instrument Curator, Martin Perkins