Duke University Musical Instruments Collections (DUMIC)
Spring Hours
Tuesday: 1-4 PM
Wednesday: 11AM-2PM
Thursday: 2-5 PM
Friday: 2-5 PM
Sunday (Feb. 5, Mar. 26, Apr. 23, and May 14 ONLY): 2-5 PM
Closed Saturday and Monday
For more information, contact Brenda Neece, curator of DUMIC and the Eddy Collection.
Current Exhibit
Exhibit
in Perkins Library: Highlights of the Duke University
Musical Instrument Collections
12 January – 10 March 2006
Instruments, paintings, books and images from the G. Norman and Ruth G. Eddy Collection of Musical Instruments, the Frans and Willemina de Hen-Biji Collection of Musical Instruments and other individual pieces, which together comprise Duke’s musical instrument collections.
About
DUMIC
The Duke University Musical Instrument Collections (DUMIC) are founded on the flagship collection, the G. Norman and Ruth G. Eddy Collection of Musical Instruments, which arrived here in Durham in 2000. The Eddy Collection has inspired further generous gifts and the acquisition of the Frans and Willemina de Hen-Bijl Collection of Musical Instruments, which arrived at Duke in 2003. While the Eddy Collection consists primarily of instruments and paintings of instruments from America and Europe, Duke’s de Hen Collection includes over 200 musical instruments from all over the world. The de Hen Collection together with the Eddy Collection and other individual gifts make up the DUMIC.
It
is the aim of DUMIC to provide students, scholars, performers,
and interested members of the public with access to these
instruments in order to foster awareness and interest
in music of the past and an understanding of the complex
network of interrelationships among the areas of cultural
history, composition, performance, and the art of instrument
making. Highlights include instruments from the time
of Mozart and Beethoven, the American Civil War, and
instruments from around the world, including objects
from the Middle East, Africa, South America, and Asia.
The
collections have already inspired performances by professionals
such as Don Eagle, Randall Love, and Rebecca Troxler.
The interdisciplinary area of organology, or the study
of musical instruments, seems to be gaining popularity
among the Duke University student body. The first courses
taught using DUMIC instruments have been very well received
by students. The curator usually has the maximum number
of independent study students allowed by Duke working
on diverse projects related to the Eddy and de Hen instruments,
each applying his/her expertise gained in other departments
to his/her study of the instruments. To students, the
most appealing aspect of the collections of instruments
is that as undergraduates, they are able to do primary
research on museum quality objects. DUMIC has already
provided inspiration and primary materials for award-winning
student projects such as a study of Indian string instruments
by David Boldt (Civil Engineering, 2003), a study of
the symbolic role of musical instruments in late eighteenth-
and early nineteenth-century English church bands by
Alexandra Jones (Religion, 2003), and a social history
and photographic study by R. Thad Parsons, III (History
of Science, 2003) who will be continuing his studies
at the University of Oxford later this fall. Last semetser’s
student work included Michael Zordan’s (Biomedical
Engineering, 2005) and John-Paul Kimbrough’s (Music,
2005) project to create a new catalog website, Ami Paik’s
(Comparative Area Studies, 2005) research into the musical
instruments in Peking Opera, and a research project that
resulted in a display and a lecture recital by Michael
Johnson (Music and Chemistry, 2004).
About the De Hen Collection
Duke’s recently acquired Frans & Willemina de Hen-Bijl Collection includes over 200 musical instruments from all over the world that were collected by prominent Belgian organologist and ethnomusicologist Professor Ferdinand J. de Hen whose main interests are the history and structure of classical European, Indian, and African musical instruments.
About the Eddy Collection
The G. Norman & Ruth G. Eddy Collection consists of about 400 American and European instruments and 100 paintings. It was acquired by Duke alumnus G. Norman Eddy (1906-2000) and his wife Ruth over a period of many years; in addition to musical instruments, it includes some 100 remarkable trompe l'oeil paintings by Dr. Eddy depicting the evolution, cross-sections, and other technical details of the instruments. The Eddy Collection is unique in the Southeast and creates an opportunity for in-depth study of the development of musical instruments, history of instrument technology, historically informed performance practice, and instrument conservation. The collection is also particularly strong as a resource for students of 19th-century American culture and brass bands.
One of the stipulations of the gift made by the Eddys is that some of the instruments should be maintained in playing condition, so that performers can experience 18th- and 19th-century music on historical instruments. This creates many dilemmas for the curatorial staff, but is ultimately a wonderful resource for the University and the wider community.
The Eddy Collection, which arrived in Durham in 2000,
has already inspired further generous gifts, notably
the 1794 Kirckman square piano given by Alexander and
Kathy Silbiger in memory of Gian Lyman (1931-1974), “The
Red Cello” – possibly one of the earliest
American-made cellos – given by Jim Craig, and
the acquisition (from Belgian organologist Ferdinand
J. de Hen) of the Frans and Willemina de Hen Collection
of Musical Instruments from around the world (about 200
items).
The maintenance of the Eddy Collection at Duke is made possible through the generosity of the Ethel Sieck Carrabina Fund.
Visiting Exhibition: The Legacy of Sebastian Virdung
Western
culture is seemingly unique in that it has an imposing
history of printed books concerned with its serious musical
instruments. No other major culture has such a legacy
even though many others have impressive musical instruments
of their own. Europe’s printed books on the subject
of instruments first began to appear at the beginning
of the sixteenth century and have continued to be produced
through the present time. The first general book on musical
instruments is Sebastian Virdung’s Musica getutscht,
published in 1511. In this work, Virdung speaks to us
not only in words and musical notes, but also through
pictures. It is this combination of printed text, music,
and pictorial representations of the instruments that
makes his work, and those that followed, so useful to
us today. Not only are we told how the instruments were
used and tuned – we are also shown what they looked
like and what music they were to play. Today, through
a careful study of the lessons from these sources one
can bring to life the music of that time.
Frederick
Richard (Eric) Selch (1930-2002) held a unique place
among American bibliophiles for his outstanding success
in collecting rare books about the history, design, and
use of musical instruments. This field of study, known
today as organology, can be traced back to such Renaissance
writings as Virdung’s, but only in the twentieth
century did it become an academic discipline in its own
right. The study of musical instruments illuminates such
vital aspects of culture as aesthetics, science, technology,
traditional beliefs, and entertainment. Eric Selch was
an energetic leader in this specialized field, which
is still not widely taught. The publications that he
painstakingly acquired and liberally shared outline the
development of organology and, perhaps more importantly,
furnish a resource for continuing research. Many of these
works are also fascinating milestones in the history
of printing and book illustration. The present selection – drawn
from a much larger total – includes especially
noteworthy publications that represent the diversity
and quality of his collection, which remains unsurpassed
in private possession in the United States.
The display at Duke includes key organological texts dating from the 16th through the 19th centuries handpicked to highlight instruments in the Duke University Musical Instrument Collections (DUMIC). After leaving Duke University, the exhibit will travel to the University of Chicago and the University of Maryland - College Park, where the collection will permanently reside in the Frederick R. Selch Center for the Study of American Music History.