V&A Musical Instrument Petition (UK)

Subject: RE: V&A Musical Instrument Petition (UK)
From: GUEST,Edwina Harrison
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 07:32 PM

I love fashion, but music and musical instruments are equally if not more important. Music instruments and this collection are a representation of extraordinary cultural achievements, exploration and humanity. Please, please, please let us see them, admire them and love them.

Subject: RE: V&A Musical Instrument Petition (UK)
From: Edthefolkie
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 08:46 AM

I've signed this, I got a heads up from Graham Coatman who runs the Hexham Abbey Festival (recommended by the way - in September).

I remember visiting the instruments gallery when it had been done up about 30-40 years ago, and I suspect very little has been done since. As Martin says, defeatist attitude. Contrast this with the National Railway Museum who with probably far less money has managed to open up lots of "new" exhibits at York and a complete second museum at Shildon.

Subject: RE: V&A Musical Instrument Petition (UK)
From: GUEST,Tim Henderson
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 08:10 AM

I liked this extract from Madeau Stewart's obituary in the Telegraph :

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1530571/Madeau-Stewart.html

"After the war she got a job as a selector for the BBC's Sound Archives, which at that time consisted mainly of spoken material. Finding that there was a growing demand from programme-makers for appropriate theme and incidental music for period dramas and travel series, she took on the task of augmenting the BBC's early music and non-British folk and indigenous music archives, a job which involved travelling around the world to collect recordings from far-flung parts and gathering in material from itinerant contributors.

In building up the BBC's early and Baroque music archives, she determined to try to record as much as possible on original instruments, and arranged a visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum's collection, a sadly neglected backwater of the museum's department of Woodwork and Furniture. She was dismayed to find that, while a few prize pieces were on public display, most of the collection was gathering dust in a corridor.

"It was the most saddening sight I've ever seen," Madeau Stewart recalled. "Simply ghastly. They were all piled up, higgledy piggledy, and all warping. I went in with one of the woodwork people and she absolutely played into my hands. 'Oops,' she said, 'I see that instrument's got another crack in it.' Obviously she didn't care and it was made quite clear to me that they didn't care."

Determined to get someone to save the collection before it was too late, she wrote to her cousin Nancy Mitford, then living in Paris, who put her on to Avilda Lees-Milne who, in turn, secured her an interview with the museum's director Sir Trenchard Cox.

"I was shaking with rage and he was terribly nice because we went for him like nothing on earth," she recalled. Her onslaught made an impression, for within a short time Margaret Hodsdon was giving concerts on the Elizabethan virginals; eventually the museum opened a separate music gallery......"

Subject: RE: V&A Musical Instrument Petition (UK)
From: s&r
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 07:38 AM

Signed and linked on facebook

Stu

Subject: RE: V&A Musical Instrument Petition (UK)
From: GUEST,Martin Wedgwood
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 07:24 AM

I have been asked by my brother-in-law to sign the petition posted on the No: 10 Downing Street petitions page, seeking to stop the V&A Museum from putting its collection of Musical instruments into storage.

This seems to me to be a wholly negative attitude. I know the V&A reasonably well. I have never stumbled across the musical instruments. I suspect that this has been for a long while a Cinderella department. I know nothing of the history of the department, still less of any of the discussions that have taken place, leading to what seems to me to be a very defeatist decision.

1.

Subject: RE: V&A Musical Instrument Petition
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 04:54 AM

I now see Sian had a link in her thread; ah well - can't be enough attention brought to this...

Subject: V&A Musical Instrument Petition
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 04:52 AM

Apologies if this has been posted before, I did a search but didn't find anything. I found the link last night at Pamela's Music.

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to ensure that all members of the public have continued, free and open access to the complete historic and valuable musical instrument collection entrusted over generations to the Victoria and Albert Museum, and currently exhibited in Room 40 (Jan 2010).

Submitted by Mrs Jay Wilkinson â€" Deadline to sign up by: 19 January 2011"

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/VandAchange/