The Royal Academy of Music's museum (also known as the York Gate Collections) is a museum of musical instruments and artefacts and research centre of the Royal Academy of Music[1] in London, England.
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The building was designed in 1822 as part of the main entrance to Regent’s Park, and was an important feature in John Nash’s architectural designs for Regency London.[2] The interior of York Gate was largely destroyed by bomb damage in the 1940s, but the Nash exterior has Grade 1 listed building status. The Royal Academy of Music moved to Marylebone Road in 1911, and held a lease on part of York Gate during the 1920s and 1930s. A grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund enabled the Academy to acquire and refurbish the building to house studios and practice rooms and a museum.
The galleries display materials from the Academy’s collections of instruments, archives, manuscripts and images. The highlights of the collections include Cremonese stringed instruments dated between 1650 and 1740, a selection of historical English pianos from 1790 to 1850, from the famous Mobbs Collection. The galleries act as a showcase for the work of performers, composers, instrument makers and scholars from a wide range of musical and other relevant disciplines.
The Academy houses original manuscripts by Purcell, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Brahms, Sullivan and Vaughan Williams, musical memorabilia and other exhibits.[3]
The Academy holds a collection of more than 200 stringed instruments from the violin family. These have been acquired for the benefit of students and recent leavers and they are maintained by the Academy's resident luthier. The collections include several instruments of the Stradivarius family, including the violins ex-back (1666), the Rutson (1694), Joachim (1698), Kustendyke (1699), Crespi (1600), Viotti-ex-bruce (1709), Maurin (1718) , violin by Omobono Stradivari (c.1727) and the Habeneck (1734), violas Archinto (1699), and Kux-Catelbarco (1714), celli Markevich-Delphiro (1709) and Marquis de Corberon-ex-Loeb (1726). Other instruments include Nicolo Amati violin (1662), violin (c.1620) and violin (1671 ), violin by Antonio and Girolamo Amati (1629) Joseph Guarneri cello (1692), Andrea Guarneri viola (1690) and violin (c.1665) and a Hieronymus Amati violin (1719).[4][5] In 2005 the Academy acquired the famous "Viotti ex-Bruce" violin, made by Stradivarius in 1709, on behalf of the nation.[6]
Items from the working collections of famous musicians associated with the Academy include batons, a stopwatch and scores owned by Sir Henry Wood, percussion instruments selected and played by James Blades and the restored Alexander horn which was played by Dennis Brain, damaged in the crash which killed him, and subsequently restored by Paxman of London.[7]
Other collections include the Foyle Menuhin archive (letters, music, photographs, artworks and more collected by Yehudi Menuhin over his lifetime),[8] Jenny Lind (1820-1887) Collection, David Munrow (1942-1976) Collection, the Priaulx Rainier (1903-1986) Collection and The McCann Collection.[9]