Preserving and Sustaining the Department of Music's Instrument Collection, University of California, Berkeley
FAIN: PG-258451-18
University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, CA 94704-5940)
Nicholas Mathew (Project Director: May 2017 to March 2021)
Purchasing environmental monitoring equipment, storage furniture, and preservation supplies with which to preserve and sustain a large
collection of historical and rare musical instruments dating from the 17th
through the 19th centuries. The collection encompasses more than 150
instruments, including the world-renowned Salz Collection of stringed
instruments (with antique violins, violas, and bows), a collection of 18
Baroque instruments, as well as wind instruments (woodwinds and brasses),
percussion, keyboard, and other significant plucked and bowed stringed
instruments. Highlights from the collection, which are used for research and educational
programs, include the 1620 Antonio and Hieronymus Amati viola, made in Cremona,
Italy, that bears the unique painted coat of arms of the Venetian Radetti
family and was later acquired by Robert von Mendelssohn in Berlin in the early
19th century.
This NEH Preservation Grant is being sought to preserve a rare and important collection of historical musical instruments in the Department of Music at the University of California, Berkeley. Students, faculty, and the community benefit from access to this collection through many avenues. These include research into the object histories, their authenticity, and provenance. It also includes instruction, performance, and public programming. Some of the instruments are used for exhibition purposes in the Department of Music and elsewhere. With a historical range situated primarily in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, the instruments intersect with a long and rich cultural history. The NEH grant would support an environmental monitoring program and necessary preservation supplies and equipment so that these musical instruments will continue to resonate long into the foreseeable future.