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(b Kranz, Russia, July 7, 1896; d Trondheim, Norway, Nov 19, 1963). Norwegian collector of musical instruments and founder and director of the Ringve Museum in Trondheim. An amateur singer, she had no formal musical training, but three siblings became professional musicians. In 1920 Victoria (née Rostin) married Christian Anker Bachke (1873–1946), the last private owner of Ringve manor outside Trondheim. Together they made plans for two museums: one for the history of the manor and its inhabitants, another for musical instruments, which they had begun to collect. Upon Christian’s death, his will established a foundation encompassing the land and buildings, and Mrs Bachke began serious collecting to prepare the museum, which opened in 1952 in the manor’s main building, a well-kept example of historicist architecture and interior decoration from the second half of the 19th century. Her main gifts for this task were enthusiasm and useful contacts, notably in France and Italy. One of her advisors was the Danish musicologist and organologist Godtfred Skjerne. Before she died, Mrs Bachke had collected about 1000 instruments of European and non-Western classical and folk traditions. She desired that the instruments be playable. Today the Ringve Museum has a national responsibility for collections of musical instruments in Norway, with educational and scientific staff and a conservation workshop. It remains a foundation under the administration of Museene i Sør-Trøndelag AS....

[Ennal, Charles-Ernest]

(b Fockenhof, Kurland, Feb 14, 1722; d Paris, March 24, 1791). French dilettante, amateur violinist and composer, patron of the arts and instrument collector. A magnificent and very wealthy nobleman, he both amused and astounded his contemporaries. M. Audinot in his comic opera La musicomanie (1779), and possibly E.T.A. Hoffmann in his tale Die Serapionsbrüder (1819), attempted to evoke his strange personality, emphasizing its ridiculous nature.

At the death of his father, a landed nobleman, in 1747, Bagge inherited a large fortune which enabled him to study the violin in Italy with Tartini. By 1750 he had settled in Paris; in the following year he was awarded the title chambellan du Roi de Prusse (then Frederick II) and married the daughter of the Swiss banker Jacob Maudry. With Maudry's death in 1762 the very large inheritance proved a source of contention to the ill-matched couple and they soon separated. Bagge later attempted to gain possession of the inheritance of Mme Maudry, who had died in ...

(b Croydon, South London, UK, April 11, 1863; d Oxford, Feb 9, 1939). English ethnographer, museum curator, and collector. He was appointed first curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford (GB.O.prm), in 1893, having worked there as assistant from its foundation in 1884, and continued as curator until his death. He enriched the collection enormously by contacting every anthropologist he knew, through the Royal Anthropological Institute of which he became President, and government officers and administrators in districts all over the British possessions, asking them to acquire objects of ethnographic interest with as much documentation as possible. He travelled widely and acquired many objects himself, all of which, more than 15,000 items including hundreds of musical instruments, he bequeathed to the museum. Consequently the Pitt Rivers became one of the world’s great ethnographic museums, particularly rich in folk and non-Western musical instruments, most of them well documented with photographs and often with field recordings. Balfour published ...

(b London, UK, July 17, 1946). Conservator of musical instruments and maker of brasses, based in Ottawa, Canada. After studying fine arts and English at the University of Toronto, he joined the Canadian Conservation Institute, Ottawa, in 1975 as a conservator of furniture and wooden objects. He was trained in instrument conservation at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, and received a PhD from the Open University in 1999. He has undertaken wide-ranging projects in the conservation, display, and use of historical instruments in European and North American museums. He has received awards from the American Musical Instrument Society, the Galpin Society, and the Historic Brass Society for his numerous writings. He was named senior conservator at the Canadian Conservation Institute in 1991 and retired in 2007.

Barclay began in 1976 to make reproduction trumpets after models by Johann Carl Kodisch, Johann Leonhard Ehe (iii), and Hanns Hainlein. His book ...

(von Ahn)

(b Newcastle upon Tyne, May 19, 1878; d Great Missenden, Nov 2, 1958). English collector and historian of instruments and composer. He was educated in Hanover (1892) and as a Macfarren scholar at the Royal Academy of Music (1893–1902, ARAM 1902), where he studied composition with Corder. After serving as assistant music master at Winchester College (1909–22), he returned to the RAM in 1922 as professor of harmony and counterpoint, becoming a Fellow of the RAM in the same year; he held the professorship until 1940.

Carse’s early compositions include an orchestral prelude to Byron’s Manfred, a dramatic cantata, The Lay of the Brown Rosary and two symphonies; his later works, for student orchestras and beginners, are light, tuneful and individual, and ideally suited to their purpose as teaching material. His reputation, however, rests on his study of the history of instruments and the orchestra, and on his collection of some 350 old wind instruments, which he gave to the Horniman Museum, London, in ...

(b Copenhagen, May 1, 1855; d Frederiksberg, Feb 22, 1931). Danish textile manufacturer, diplomat, philanthropist, and instrument collector. He was the son of a theatre prop manager. In 1884, after some years as a school teacher and inspector, he moved to Malmö, where he opened a textile factory. While living in Sweden he helped establish the Swedish section of the International Musicological Society which he led until 1914. He returned to Copenhagen in 1906, but maintained his business in Sweden until his death. Previously he was instrumental in founding the Musikhistoriska Museet in Stockholm (1899). At the outbreak of World War I he was appointed Denmark’s consul in Peru, becoming consul-general in 1915. Active in charitable, mercantile, and museum circles, Claudius was chairman of the Sundby Asylum, co-founder of the Danish Music Society (1921), and in 1928 he became a member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Music. His honours included Knight and 2nd degree Commander of the Dannebrog. Claudius collected coins, prints, liturgical manuscripts, autographs, bookplates, but especially musical instruments, which he acquired over about 30 years, amassing one of the largest private collections in Europe at the time. He and his wife hosted concerts played on historical instruments in their home. Claudius bequeathed his collection of music and musical instruments to the Danish state. In ...

(b Casale Monferrato, March 14, 1755; d Salabue, Dec 15, 1840). Italian collector of violins. He was of noble birth and endowed with both a natural curiosity about violins and the means to satisfy it. His first great opportunity came in 1775–6 when he acquired ten Stradivari violins, together with tools, patterns and all that remained of Stradivari's violin-making equipment (now owned by the city of Cremona) from the master's son Paolo. For the next 50 years, with the assistance of the Mantegazza family, Cozio avidly traced and where possible purchased fine Italian violins of the Cremonese school, scrupulously noting down their details in his Carteggio (ed. R. Bacchetta, Milan, 1950; partial Eng. trans., 1987). He also gave much assistance and encouragement to many violin makers, including G.B. Guadagnini and Giacomo Rivolta.

Much of Cozio's collection was eventually acquired by another energetic enthusiast, Luigi Tarisio. The instruments included the famous unused Stradivari of ...

(b Canton, CT, Nov 11, 1833; d Brooklyn, NY, May 17, 1896).

American instrument dealer and collector. He was trained as a clock maker in Bristol, CT, and later worked as a machinist in Hartford, CT, before moving to New York in January 1852. The following year he became a clerk at Rohé & Leavitt, a firm of dealers at 31 Maiden Lane; on the partners’ retirement in 1863, Foote bought the company and continued it under his own name. Except for a short-lived partnership with John F. Stratton in 1865, as Stratton & Foote, “importer and manufacturer” of brass band instruments, he was sole manager for the next 30 years, dealing in string, woodwind, and brass instruments and serving as the sole American agent for several French manufacturers, including the firm of Courtois. A Chicago “branch house” of his business, under the management of W.H. Foote, was still in operation at the time of his death. An obituary in the ...

(b Dorchester, Dec 25, 1858; d Richmond, Surrey, Dec 30, 1945). English collector of musical instruments and scholar. He was educated at King's School, Sherborne, where James Robert Sterndale Bennett, son of the composer, encouraged his aptitude for music. From 1877 he studied classics at Trinity College, Cambridge (BA 1882, MA 1885), where he played the clarinet under Stanford in the orchestra of the Cambridge University Musical Society. Ordained in 1883, he was curate of Redenhall with Harleston, Norfolk, for four years, then curate at St Giles-in-the-Fields (1887–91), vicar of Hatfield Broad Oak (formerly Hatfield Regis, 1891–1915), vicar of Witham (1915–21) and rector of Faulkbourn (1921–33). In 1917 he was made a canon of Chelmsford Cathedral. From his university years onwards, Galpin made an outstanding collection of musical instruments, which he made freely available for public exhibitions and lectures and described and illustrated in his book ...

(b Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland, 1910; d New York, Aug 27, 2010). American musician, instrument collector, bow maker, and jeweller. Kaston studied the violin with his father and grandfather before taking lessons with Enescu in Paris from 1937. After World War II he came with his wife to New York; their son was born during the passage. He played briefly with the Cleveland Orchestra before joining the Metropolitan Opera orchestra in 1943. In the 1960s he worked part-time for Wurlitzer as a bow maker and repairer, honing his skills as a copyist especially of Tourte bows, which he imitated so successfully that some have passed in the market as authentic. His knowledge of Tourte’s work was summarized in the book François-Xavier Tourte: Bow Maker (New York, 2001). Along with fine bows, Kaston created jewellery, including pieces commissioned by Salvador Dalí. Some of his bows incorporated jewels in their fittings. Kaston also invented a rubber mute, marketed as the ‘Heifetz’ mute....

(b London, England, May 27, 1922; d Malta, March 17, 1964). English organologist and collector of keyboard instruments. He was a Fellow of Trinity College London and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. Born into a wealthy and artistic family (the owners of Mottisfont Abbey), he acquired his first keyboard instrument in 1939, and over the following 25 years built up a substantial collection of 17th- and 18th-century harpsichords and clavichords. Through detailed study of these and other antique instruments, he became an acknowledged expert, and was asked to compile catalogues of the Victoria and Albert Museum and Benton Fletcher collections. Although not himself a craftsman, he took a keen interest in the present-day manufacture of early keyboard instruments, being among the first to criticize modern developments and advocate a return to a more historical style. His book The Harpsichord and Clavichord outshone its predecessors for the accuracy and detail of its descriptions and the penetration of its analysis; it helped to inspire a change of direction in harpsichord making in favour of careful copies of antique instruments. Frank Hubbard was among those influenced by it. In ...

(b Strelna, Russia, 1848; d Tallinn, Estonia, 1925). Russian baron, military officer, musician, and instrument collector. From 1882 he led the St Petersburg court vocal and instrumental ensemble, which used some violins and flutes that had belonged to Alexander I (whose ancestor Peter III had acquired more than 60 valuable instruments). From 1897 Shtakelberg directed the court’s professional orchestra. In 1899 he joined a commission to examine the status of the imperial theatres. With the support of Alexander III, a serious amateur musician, Shtakelberg initiated in 1902 a museum of music that was to have five divisions: a comprehensive collection of instruments of all peoples from antiquity to the present; a centre for instrument design and construction, intended to encourage Russian manufacture; an acoustical laboratory for the exploration and explanation of musical sound; a musicological research library, with a section on the history of music printing; and an archive of music manuscripts, iconography, and memorabilia. The museum was to be complemented with concerts, using instruments from the collection or copies. The project was not completed, but through extensive correspondence and exchanges with other European and American collectors, donations from Russian nobles—the empress Maria Feodorovna herself donated a group of richly decorated Persian instruments—and his own travels, Shtakelberg built an impressive assemblage of historical and exotic instruments that formed the nucleus of the present collection of the St Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Music....

[Morris]

(b Scheinfeld, Bavaria, March 9, 1831; d New Haven, CT, Jan 21, 1912). American music dealer and collector of instruments. He moved to New Haven in 1854, and in 1856 to Savannah, Georgia. Shortly after the Civil War broke out he returned to New Haven, and his name appeared in the New Haven City Directory of 1862; by 1866 he was listed as a piano and music dealer. He formed the Mathushek Pianoforte Co. and later the M. Steinert & Sons Co., which sold pianos in Boston, Providence, New Haven and other cities. He was active in the musical life of New Haven where he was organist at St Thomas’s Church, taught music and formed a quartet in which he played cello. He later formed an orchestra which was to become the nucleus around which he founded the New Haven SO in 1894. This orchestra is the fourth oldest in the USA with a continuous existence. He became interested in antique musical instruments and the problems involved in playing them, and assembled a collection of considerable importance which was exhibited in Vienna in ...

(b Oxford, Feb 11, 1838; d Oxford, Jan 8, 1905). English music and instrument dealer and collector . He was the son of Charles Taphouse (c1816–1881), the founder of the firm of Charles Taphouse & Son Ltd, first established in 1857 at 10 Broad Street, Oxford, shortly after at 33 St Giles, and from 1859 at 3 Magdalen Street. Taphouse held various local appointments as organist, and made the music shop into a lively musical centre, having added a piano warehouse and several music rooms to the premises – one of which was for many years the home of the Oxford University Music Club. His collection of early music and instruments, which contained numerous rare and some unique printed and manuscript items (including the only contemporary source of the Violin Sonata by Henry Purcell), became one of the finest in the country. The library was sold by auction at Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge's in ...

(b Fontaneto d’Agogna, nr Novara, c1790; d Milan, Oct 1854). Italian violin dealer and collector . He was born of humble parents and is said to have trained as a carpenter, with violin playing as a hobby. He developed an interest in violins themselves, and with a natural talent both as a connoisseur and for business he began to acquire and resell some of the many fine instruments that were lying unused in the towns and villages of northern Italy. His first journey to Paris (in 1827) was evidently profitable for him and for the dealers there, who gave him every encouragement. In the same year he made his greatest coup, acquiring a number of violins from Count Cozio di Salabue, including a 1716 Stradivari in unused condition. This violin was Tarisio's treasure, and as he spoke of it on every visit to Paris but never actually brought it with him it came to be known as the ‘Messiah’....

(b Potsdam, Germany, Nov 15, 1855; d Washington, DC, Nov 14, 1938). American collector of and dealer in keyboard instruments. His father, Christian, had a music business in Trenton, New Jersey, from c1858 to 1861, and in Washington from 1863 to 1868 and again in 1883; Worch and his brother Emil took this over in 1883, and after Emil’s death his widow and Hugo continued the business as Hugo Worch & Co. from 1884 until 1895. After 1895 the firm of Hugo Worch sold instruments (including pianos sold under the Worch name but manufactured elsewhere), sheet music, and, as tastes changed, phonographs, recordings, and radios. The firm went out of business in 1960 on the retirement of Hans Hugo Worch, who had bought it from his brother Carl and sister Paulina in 1954.

In the 1880s Worch began collecting keyboard instruments that showed the development of the American piano industry from the 1790s to ...