Musical Instruments Museum, Musical instrument collection in Mont des Arts, Belgium
Description
The Musical Instruments Museum sits in an Art Nouveau building at Mont des Arts and displays over 8,000 instruments from different periods and regions across four exhibition floors. The collection spans from European stringed instruments to African drums and Asian wind instruments.
History
The museum was founded in 1877 to show early instruments to students at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, starting with collections from King Leopold II. It grew into one of Europe's major musical instrument museums.
Culture
The name reflects its core mission of introducing visitors to instruments from around the world. You can hear sounds here and see how different cultures create and perform music.
Practical
You can explore the collections with audioguides using infrared headphones and hear sounds from around 300 instruments. The building is fully wheelchair-accessible with elevators serving all exhibition floors.
Did you know?
The collection holds the first saxophone ever made, along with giant Chinese stone chimes. Most striking is the only surviving luthéal instrument that composer Maurice Ravel actually used.
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