The Czech Museum of Music

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Guided tours:
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for groups of maximum 20 people
foreign language 600 CZK / group
orders at least 1 week in advance, phone or e-mail
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1st floor
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THE NATIONAL MUSEUM
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on Mondays and Fridays from 10 AM to 3 PM
on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 10 AM to 6 PM
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The Czech Museum of Music's study room:
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according to the size and nature of the exhibition
www.nm.cz
The Czech Museum of Music
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Karmelitská 2, 118 00 Praha 1
tel.: +420 257 257 777, e-mail: c_muzeum_hudby@nm.cz
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Ke Karlovu 20, 120 00 Praha 2
tel.: +420 224 918 013, e-mail: a_dvorak_museum@nm.cz
The Bedřich Smetana Museum
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Novotného lávka 1, 110 00 Praha 1
tel.: +420 222 220 082, e-mail: b_smetana_muzeum@nm.cz
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The Jaroslav Ježek Memorial
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The Antonín Dvořák Memorial
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277 51 Nelahozeves 12
tel.: +420 315 785 099, e-mail: a_dvorak_pamatnik@nm.cz
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The Bedřich Smetana Memorial
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294 45 Jabkenice
tel.: +420 326 389 127, e-mail: jabkenice_smetana_pamatnik@nm.cz
The Josef Suk Memorial
257 48 Křečovice 3
tel.: +420 317 741 308, e-mail: c_muzeum_hudby@nm.cz
Media Partners
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Partner
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Main Partner
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design: MgA. Alexandr Puškin> www.alexandrpuskin.com, foto: Oto Palán
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Groundfloor
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Kaprova 10, 110 00 Praha 1
tel.: +420 257 257 777, e-mail: museum_musicale@nm.cz
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Main entry
Cashdesk, souvenirs
Atrium
Temporary exhibitions
Small concert
and exhibition hall
6 Main staircase
Entry into exhibition
7 Front staircase
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The whole building allows barrier-free access.
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Admission fee for a temporary exhibition only:
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regular 100 CZK
reduced 50 CZK
family 120 CZK
school groups 30 CZK
annual fee 200 CZK
The Antonín Dvořák Museum
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Admission fee for the whole building:
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Cloackroom
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Stairlift
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Lift
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19 Violin Making in Bohemia
and Moravia
20 Harps
21-22 Wind Instruments
23 Percussion Instruments
and Accordions
24 Instruments Used in Folk Music
25 Mechanical Instruments
access via trams 12, 20 or 22, stop 'Hellichova'
closest metro (underground) station 'Malostranská' on Line A
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Entry into main exhibition
Popular music of the 20th Century
Music experiments of the 20th Century
Stringed Keyboard Instruments
Polyphonic Wind Instruments
Music of the Renaissance
and Early Baroque
17 Bowed Stringed Instruments
18 Plucked Instruments
Open daily except Tuesday from 10 AM to 6 PM
Transport:
Czech
Museum
of Music
The Permanent Exhibition
Man / Instrument / Music
The Czech Museum of Music presents musical instruments to its visitors as examples of both craft and art,
and as a fundamental mediator between human beings
and music.
The Former Church of St. Mary Magdalene
The building that serves today as the headquarters of
the Czech Museum of Music has a rich history. The cornerstone of this former Church of St. Mary Magdalene,
associated with a Dominican monastery, was laid in
1654. Construction began according to plans by the
Italian architect Francesco Caratti, who also designed
for example the Černín Palace in Prague’s Hradčany district. In 1667 Caratti was dismissed, and his work on the
project was continued by Gio Decapauli and Christoph
Dientzenhofer. The Baroque coat of arms on the inside of
the dome commemorates the Michna z Vacínova family
of patrons, which financed the construction. The church
was formally consecrated in 1709, but already in 1783 it
was deconsecrated and the building converted to secular purposes, serving first as a warehouse for a sugar
refinery then as the main post office for Prague. Dating
from this time are the illusory painted wall decorations
in late Rococo style in rooms on the first floor above
ground level. The year 1850 saw commencement of a
fundamental remodelling of the building to serve as barracks for a police regiment. The church’s side naves were
built up to their present height, a monumental staircase
having several rises per floor was built into the space of
the main nave, and galleries were added on iron consoles. During this time the building’s exterior was also unified in classical style. Work was completed in 1855. The
former church served the needs of the police until the
end of World War II, when it was allocated to the State
Central Archive. Remodelling to serve the needs of the
Czech Museum of Music took place from 2002 to 2004.
The exhibition is divided into parts displaying various
instrumental families: visitors pass progressively through
halls devoted to keyboard, string, and wind instruments.
On display are instruments by important Czech makers,
for example by members of the famous Špidlen family
of violin makers, but one can also see a violin with intarsia decoration by the world-famous Italian maker Nicolò
Amati. Separate rooms are devoted to folk instruments,
mechanical instruments, and the unique collection of
instruments from the ‘Rožmberk Court Ensemble’ of the
sixteenth century. Exceptional items include a piano by
Franz Xaver Christoph that was played in 1787 by Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart during a visit to Prague, in his public concert at the Institute of Noblewomen in the ‘New
Town’. One of the halls is devoted to popular music of the
twentieth century in its diverse forms, as preserved by
films, television, photographs, and sound recordings.
Items of special interest in the exhibition include glass
harmonicas (a fashionable instrument during the period
around 1800), a quarter-tone piano made by the August
Förster firm in the 1930s at the instigation of Alois Hába,
and a collection of instruments called ‘Šediphones’ made
by Josef Šediva – ‘two-headed’ brass instruments which
were a popular component of Russian military bands in
the early twentieth century.
The instruments displayed are only a small fraction of those
held in the Czech Museum of Music’s collections. However,
in combination with sample recordings of their sounds as
well as musical notation and pictorial materials, they give
one a coherent and colourful picture of the phenomenon
of musical instruments. The permanent exhibition is complemented by short temporary exhibitions focused on
various particular subjects, as well as by concerts and other
cultural events.
The Czech Museum of Music
The Czech Museum of Music is one of five collection-forming divisions of the National Museum. Materials pertaining to music began to appear in the collections of
the National Museum soon after its foundation in 1818,
but it was not until 1913 that the music historian and
composer Emil Axman brought about formation of a
collection specifically focused on music history. In 1946
a separate music division was established, headquartered in the Grand Prior’s Palace in Prague’s ‘Lesser Town’.
Then in 1976 this division merged with the Bedřich
Smetana Museum and the Antonín Dvořák Museum
to form the Museum of Czech Music, which since 2001
has been operating under the new title Czech Museum
of Music – administering collections containing about
700,000 items that document the history of music.
Most extensive are the Music Notation Archive and the
Recordings Library, but also remarkable are the collections of Non-Musical Manuscripts, Iconography, and
Press Documentation as well as collections of materials from personal estates, the library, the Musical
Instruments Collection, and the collections of the specialized museums devoted to Smetana and Dvořák.
The youngest division is the Centre for Documentation
of Popular Music and New Media, established in 2008.
Archival materials and the holdings of the library are
available to the public for study in the study room of
the main building at the address Karmelitská ulice 2.
The Czech Museum of Music administers seven locations that are open to the public: in Prague the main
building on Karmelitská ulice, the Bedřich Smetana
Museum, the Antonín Dvořák Museum, and the ‘Blue
Room’ of Jaroslav Ježek on Kaprova ulice, and outside the city buildings in Nelahozeves, Jabkenice, and
Křečovice. A collection of keyboard instruments belonging to the museum is housed in the castle in Litomyšl,
and a collection of mechanical instruments in the
stately home in Hořovice. In addition, items from the
museum’s collections form a major part of many other
exhibitions all over the Czech Republic.