Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>In the Music Museum presents an alternative view of Western classical music, as seen through surviving instruments rather than musical works. It takes the form of a gallery guide; not to any particular museum, but rather to one hundred and fifty instruments preserved in eighty collections around the world. The instruments have been chosen to illustrate the kinds of information that can be gleaned from them: some are the earliest or most representative examples of specific models, while others shed light on musical practice in a unique way. Some instruments tell a particular story due to their connection with individual musicians, famous or otherwise. Still others have been chosen because they are in some way controversial or difficult to interpret. The chapters are not intended to be detailed histories of each instrumental type. Instead, they are meant to give readers the analytical tools needed to look at, listen to, and think about historical instruments and to understand how this knowledge can in turn help us better appreciate music. The analysis of each instrument begins, as in a music museum, by looking at it: noting how to relate what one sees with how the instrument sounds, and how those sounds influenced how music was played. Whether it be a prehistoric seashell horn or an eighteenth-century clavichord, historical instruments are the objects that actually produced the music of the past, and as such they are of fundamental importance.</jats:p>