Music & Musical Instruments - Overview
The Museum's music collections contain more than 5,000 instruments of American and European heritage. These include a quartet of 18th-century Stradivari stringed instruments, Tito Puente's autographed timbales, and the Yellow Cloud guitar that belonged to Prince, to name only a few. Several of these rare instruments can be heard in performances of the Smithsonian Chamber Players and in other public programs. Music collections also include jukeboxes and synthesizers, square-dancing outfits and sheet music, archival materials, oral histories, and recordings of performances at the Museum. The vast Sam DeVincent Collection of Illustrated Sheet Music is a remarkable window into the American past in words, music, and visual imagery. The Duke Ellington and Ruth Ellington Boatwright collections contain handwritten music compositions, sound recordings, business records, and other materials documenting the career of this renowned musician.
"Music & Musical Instruments - Overview" showing 4 items.
Weber Violin
- Description (Brief)
- This violin was made by Robert Weber in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1930. Robert Weber was born in Germany in 1865 and was exposed to the craft of woodworking through his father, a carriage maker. He later received formal training in violin making. In 1888 Robert Weber immigrated to the United States, setting up his violin shop in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he remained until his death in 1947, at the age of 82. A quartet (two violins, one viola, one cello) of his instruments was displayed at the Chicago Exposition of 1893. This violin is made of a two-piece table of spruce with irregular medium grain broadening toward the flanks, two-piece back of maple cut on the quarter with irregular medium ascending figure, ribs of similar maple, original neck, pegbox and scroll of mild medium figured maple, and a golden orange-brown varnish.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1930
- maker
- Weber, Robert
- ID Number
- 1984.1133.01
- catalog number
- 1984.1133.01
- accession number
- 1984.1133
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Gemünder "Art" Violin
- Description (Brief)
- This violin was made by Oscar A. Gemünder in New York, New York in 1936. The New York City violinmaking firm of August Gemünder was founded in 1866 and renamed August Gemünder & Sons in 1890 as three of his sons, August II (1862-1928), Rudolph (1865-1916) and Oscar (1872-1946), entered the business. August II became president of the firm and founded and edited a journal called Violin World, which the firm published until his death in1928. Oscar, whose signature is on the label of this violin, then ran August Gemünder & Sons, which closed permanently upon his death in 1946. August Gemünder & Sons was well known for its inexpensive line of "Gemünder Art" violins, mostly German instruments which were reworked and varnished in New York. The firm advertised that a special "Vibrant" varnish was applied in colors of orange-yellow, orange-red, deep red, reddish brown and brown red. Also, the "Art" violins were available in six models: Maggini, N. Amati, H. Amati, Stradivari, Joseph Guarneri and the Gemünder model of 1905. In addition, the company sold August Gemünder & Sons bows. Through its early history, the firm was commercially successful, with an enterprising focus on merchandising and advertising.
- Description
- This violin has an original printed label:
- "GEMÜNDER ART" VIOLIN
- AUGUST GEMÜNDER & SONS NEW
- Oscar A. Gemünder 1936
- YORK
- and the pencil inscription below the label : A285
- The New York City violinmaking firm of August Gemünder was founded in 1866 and renamed August Gemünder & Sons in 1890 as three of his sons, August II (1862-1928), Rudolph (1865-1916) and Oscar (1872-1946), entered the business. August II became president of the firm until his death in1928. Then Oscar, whose signature is on the label of this violin, ran August Gemünder & Sons, which closed permanently upon his death in 1946.
- August Gemünder & Sons was well known for its inexpensive line of "Gemünder Art" violins, mostly German instruments which were reworked and varnished in New York. The firm advertised that a special "Vibrant" varnish was applied in colors of orange-yellow, orange-red, deep red, reddish brown and brown red. Also, the "Art" violins were available in six models: Maggini, N. Amati, H. Amati, Stradivari, Joseph Guarneri and the Gemünder model of 1905. Through its early history, the firm was commercially successful, with an enterprising focus on merchandising and advertising.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1936
- maker
- Gemunder, Oscar A.
- ID Number
- 1987.0263.01
- catalog number
- 1987.0263.01
- accession number
- 1987.0263
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Aluminum Violin
- Description (Brief)
- This violin was made by the Aluminum Musical Instrument Company, Inc. in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1932. In the last decade of the 19th century Neil Merrill, president of the Aluminum Musical Instrument Co. in New York City, began incorporating aluminum in the manufacture of mandolins, fiddles, banjos, guitars and zithers. Fitted with spruce soundboards, the bodies of these instruments were pressed from one piece of aluminum.
- Unrelated to Merrill's efforts, on March 24, 1932 the Buffalo plant of ALCOA (Aluminum Company of America) joined with Dr. Joseph Maddy, a music teacher from Ann Arbor and director of the National High School Orchestra Camp at Interlochen. They redesigned a 1928 aluminum double bass model in order to market aluminum violins, with bow and case for $50.00. The Buffalo plant assembled and finished the violins to resemble wood and Dr. Maddy provided the set-up work and sales from Ann Arbor. ALCOA records indicate the Buffalo Fabricating Plant provided a total of 435 violins to Dr. Maddy and about 500 double bass instruments to other dealers.
- This 1932 model is molded with half-height ribs and back pressed from a single piece of aluminum joined at the center height of the ribs to a similarly molded aluminum table with half-height ribs. It is fitted with an aluminum neck with wood core, and an aluminum pegbox, scroll, bassbar and endpin. The exterior aluminum surfaces are painted to imitate wood grain.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1932
- maker
- Aluminum Company of America
- ID Number
- 1988.0311.01
- accession number
- 1988.0311
- catalog number
- 1988.0311.01
- serial number
- 356
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Reale Violin
- Description (Brief)
- This violin was made by Nicola Reale in Washington, DC in 1939. Nicola Reale was born November 23, 1886 in Viggiano, Italy (about 85 miles southeast of Naples), and presumably received musical training in this region. Immigrating to the United States, he was established in Washington DC in 1911 as a violin teacher and musician, his main occupation until retirement in the 1970s.
- Nicola Reale was also a self-taught violin maker, and he is recorded as a Civil Works preparator of musical instruments at the Smithsonian Institution from December, 1933 through April, 1940. In addition to undertaking repairs of museum instruments, he designed and constructed this violin in the Anthropological Laboratory, in 1939, under a Smithsonian Institution Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) project. Apart from his Smithsonian employment, Nicola pursued an active performing career, and continued to make new instruments. The Washington Post newspaper account of his death on January 12, 1974 includes a picture of Nicola Reale in 1957 with Richard Nixon, presenting a violin he made expressly for the then Vice-President of the United States. Another violin is cited as one in the possession of the museum at La Scala in Milan, Italy.
- This violin is made of a two-piece table of sitka spruce, two-piece back of slab-cut American maple with irregular, medium, horizontal figure, ribs, neck, pegbox and scroll of similar maple, and a transparent reddish-brown varnish.
- Description
- Nicola Reale was born November 23, 1886 in Viggiano, Italy (about 85 miles southeast of Naples), and presumably received musical training in this region. Immigrating to the United States, he was established in Washington DC in 1911 as a violin teacher and musician, his main occupation until retirement in the 1970s.
- Nicola Reale was also a self-taught violin maker, and he is recorded as a Civil Works preparator of musical instruments at the Smithsonian Institution from December, 1933 through April, 1940. In addition to undertaking repairs of museum instruments, he designed and constructed this violin in the Anthropological Laboratory, in 1939, under a Smithsonian Institution Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) project.
- Apart from his Smithsonian employment, Nicola pursued an active performing career, and continued to make new instruments. The Washington Post newspaper account of his death on January 12, 1974 includes a picture of Nicola Reale in 1957 with Richard Nixon, presenting a violin he made expressly for the then Vice- President of the United States. Another violin is cited as one in the possession of the museum at La Scala in Milan, Italy.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1939
- maker
- Reale, Nicola
- ID Number
- MI*380624
- catalog number
- 380624
- accession number
- 156060
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center