Marianne Bröcker Collection @museum.de

This stop is dedicated to a very special woman – Marianne Bröcker. She was an honorary member of our museum society and a long-time companion of Kurt Reichmann. In 1970, she received her doctorate with a dissertation on "The Hurdy-Gurdy. Its Construction and History". Her teaching and research focused on European ethnomusicology and organology; she also worked on dance research and practice in Europe and beyond. Marianne Bröcker died in 2013 at the age of 76 and bequeathed her collection of musical instruments to our museum. She had maintained close links to the museum for decades, in part because she was the expert musicologist behind the scenes of our music festival.

Her research trips took her to France, Italy, Romania and China. She brought back instruments from all those places. Her collection includes many small flutes and whistles, but also ethnological instruments such as the Mongolian horsehead fiddle (or morin khuur), which can be bowed to both sides. Or the crocheted pink stocking, which is a Chinese eunuch flute.

The large harp by the other window is also from her collection. This instrument has a large resonating body, because the harp was played at dances in large ballrooms. Built of wood to a simple design specifically to play dance music, this harp is completely unlike the ornate examples on which chamber music is played. But it has certainly seen and experienced a lot more than the elegant classic harp.

And now for a little anecdote! For our 10th anniversary, we asked Marianne Bröcker to publish a book about our museum. As you already know, she frequently visited China. So the first translation of our book to appear was into Chinese – not into English.