Royal College of Music Museum opens following major redevelopment

A new museum presenting items from the Royal College of Music’s extensive collection of instruments, manuscripts and artworks will open on Tuesday, October 5. Built during the pandemic, the museum follows a £3.6m investment from the Heritage Lottery Fund and is part of the London-based conservatoire's £40 million campus remodel, a project intended not only to expand the capacity of the building but to encourage wider engagement with the public.

Architects ZMMA have made practical and imaginative use of the relatively limited space that was available to them – down several flights of stairs, at a depth of 40 grand pianos – with exhibits spread across two floors and a central void which doubles as both exhibition and performance space. An installation piece commissioned by Scottish Artist Victoria Morton is suspended within this double-height atrium presenting a colourful and dynamic interpretation of the moment when music becomes performance.

Exquisite instrumental craftsmanship on display at the RCM Museum  (photo: Phil Rowley)

Curated by Professor Gabriele Rossi Rognoni, the space features a range of artworks, manuscripts and video commissions as well as 58 instruments carefully selected from RCM’s collection of over 15,000 items. Such a broad collection would undoubtedly have facilitated an in-depth walk-through of musical history, but Rognoni chose instead to split the museum’s permanent collection into three key areas representing the three phases of the creative process: Creation, Craft and Performance. The exhibition cases are colour coded according to the phase they depict, giving order to a curatorial decision which otherwise ran the risk of becoming quite chaotic within a smaller space.

The museum’s ‘Creation’ phase focuses on the birth of new ideas with various musical ‘firsts’ including the world’s earliest guitar and the earliest keyboard instrument with strings. Access to the College’s extensive collection has allowed for some creative curatorial decisions such as the display of a 1676 Hamburger cithrinchen directly opposite it’s 2D interpretation in Portrait of a Lady Holding a Hamburger Cithrinchen and a case of new inventions which will be regularly updated to display the most cutting edge new instruments.

The museum’s ‘Craft’ section, meanwhile, not only demonstrates the realisation of music through the craftsmanship of the instruments used to produce it, but also provides a good excuse to show off the most beautiful and intricate items from the RCM collection. Among these are a 16th century harpsichord, beautifully decorated with inspiration from Titian’s depictions of Venus with Cupid, and a case of ivory recorders. These are presented alongside a film produced in collaboration with the College’s Exhibition Road neighbours, The Natural History Museum, which discusses the environmental impact of the instrument production industry.

In an attempt to capture the ephemeral nature of music, ‘Performance’, the last phase of the permanent collection, offers access to recordings (headphones are available, but visitors can also bring their own and plug them into each sound exhibit), as well as musician and composer portraits. This section also currently contains the never-before-exhibited autograph manuscript of Mozart's Piano Concerto No 24, kept under protective ‘intelligent glass’, and with one page turned each Monday. Visitors anxious to see this should book their tickets now as, to further protect the documents from light exposure it will only be on display until January 10th, when it will be replaced by Chopin’s Minute Waltz.

Every instrument in the museum is in playable condition and so RCM students are able to further demonstrate this ‘Performance’ phase in the free chamber concerts performed in the atrium space every Friday lunchtime.

The upper level of the museum houses a temporary exhibition space, currently showing Musical Portraits in Bohemian London. This first exhibition uses items from the RCM collection to explore the intersection of art, music and literature as a result of the concentrated neighbourhood of creatives in early 20th century London. The exhibition features work produced by the College’s alumni alongside a display of Magpie Madrigal Society invitations and posters, and is presented with impressive attention to detail against the textile patterns of William Morris.

The RCM Museum also seeks to provide valuable educational resources through the Us Reist Learning Space with tablets available for visitors to explore RCM’s extensive digital collection, and the Yveston Discovery Centre intended for use by families and schools where volunteers will engage visitors in music-based activities.

‘The Royal College of Music Museum will be a wonderful addition to London’s cultural scene,’ said Rognoni, the RCM Museum curator, ‘and I can’t wait to finally invite visitors to experience our quirky, living, breathing collection first-hand.’

The RCM Museum will open on October 5; opening hours are Tuesday – Friday, 10.15am-5.45pm; Saturday & Sunday 11am-6pm. Booking is recommended. Free tickets are available for morning and afternoon slots and are subject to a £1.95 booking fee. Some drop-in tickets will be available on the door. For more details visit: rcm.ac.uk/museum/