For mouth or hand
The Willisau Musical Instrument Collection is hosting a special exhibition of harmonica instruments from Trossingen. The museum's own collection shows the development from the Langnauerli to the Schwyzerörgeli.
Word has gotten around among music lovers that the former print shop of the Willisauer Boten has become a center for musical instruments in the Lucerne hinterland. The success story began in 2000, when the Albert Koechlin Foundation acquired the collection of Christian Patt, who had been inspired by pictorial sources to recreate medieval and Renaissance instruments. This core collection gave rise to the Willisau Musical Instrument Collection, whose director, a primary school teacher and trained organ builder, initially sought to link the collection with local instrument making in the musically active town through temporary exhibitions. Adrian Steger also succeeded in attracting visitors to the large museum space and the beautiful baroque churches of Willisau with concerts of early music.
However, the real boost to the small museum came from the Heinrich Schumacher Collection, which was accessible from 1943-2009 in the Richard Wagner House on Tribschen in Lucerne and has now been on display in Willisau since 2010. Instead of a catalog of the collection, Adrian Steger published in 2013 in the series Central Swiss treasure chest together with Martin Kirnbauer, Martina Papiro, Franz Peter and Georg Anderhub an informative ABC of musical instruments from alphorn to slide trombone.
- Rare instruments with resounding reeds: Rotary harmonium, mélopone and the contrabass-like cécilium
Resounding success with a resounding tongue
Following exhibitions on church bells (2013) and house organs (2015), numerous harmonica instruments are on display until the end of June 2016 under the title On everyone's lips and in many hands on display. It is a traveling exhibition of the Hohner harmonica museum in Trossingen (Baden-Württemberg), supplemented by in-house musical instruments and loans. In this world-famous center for mouth and hand harmonica making for 150 years, over a hundred employees still cater to the needs of the global market today, as 40 million people play the harmonica in the United States alone. The exhibition gives an idea of the popularity of this family of instruments in a ten-minute documentary film edited from the company's own material. As a Swiss contribution, the development from the small Langnauerli in the early to the much richer Schwyzerörgeli at the end of the 19th century is documented with beautiful exhibits from private collections. In addition to an original selection of 25,000 harmonicas from the Trossingen Museum, curiosities such as the rotary harmonium, cécilium or mélopone and listening stations will amuse visitors.
The principle of tone production by means of a reed (a metal strip that is fixed on one side via the gap in the reedplate and is made to vibrate and sound with breath or bellows air) can be understood literally by means of large models constructed by Steger. If one compares this sound production with the percussive inverted reeds of the Asian wind instrument Sheng, which is regarded as the starting point for the harmonica movement in Europe, the assumption is confirmed that it was not this aerophone but an idiophone, the Jew's harp, which was widespread throughout the world, that inspired instrument makers in Vienna, Berlin, Moscow and Paris to invent musical instruments with percussive reeds.
Special exhibition: On everyone's lips and in many hands until June 26, 2016
Willisau Musical Instrument Collection, Am Viehmarkt 1 (Willisauer Bote building), 6130 Willisau
Opening hours: every Wednesday and monthly on the 2nd and 4th Sunday from 2-5 pm.
On other days by appointment by telephone: 041 971 05 15
