Collection: Bate Collection of Musical Instruments

Collection-level records:

• Collection overview (Cornucopia)

  Musical instruments

  In 1963 Philip Bate donated a systematic collection of European orchestral woodwind instruments with the unusual condition that students should be able to play the instruments. Reginald Morley-Pegge donated and loaned instruments and after his death in 1972, his son William Morley-Pegge gave his library with rare French material, an unrivalled collection of early instrumental tutors and his remaining instruments. The Collection has on loan 6 surviving instruments portrayed in the painting of The Sharp Family by Zoffany, the Anthony Baines Collection including the famous cornetts from the Galpin Collection, instruments from Jeremy Montagu, several keyboard instruments with 3 from the Roger Warner Collection and 3 from the Taphouse Collection. Recent acquisitions are instruments from the Michael Thomas Collection. Other notable additions include a bequest by Audrey Blackman of the William Smith harpsichord, Michael Morrow’s renaissance basset recorder, a rare Grenser bassoon and Hendrik Richters’ oboe, the first clavichord that Arnold Dolmetsch made, 2 graphite fibre bows by Von Bennigsen, the Edgar Hunt Accession of over 60 instruments, including the Bressan treble recorder, the basis of modern copies, the Javanese Gamelan Kyai Madu Laras a complete slendro and pelog gamelan presented in 1985 and played regularly. The Retford Memorial Collection of Bows, in memory of William Retford, who died in 1970, was created by his colleagues Mr. Porter and Mr. Yeoman and Arthur Bultitude; it includes a complete bow workshop. Collectors include: Philip Bate, Anthony Baines, Patricia Baines, Christopher Baines, The Friends of the Bate Collection, May Halfpenny, Edgar Hunt, Katharine Jeans, Jeremy Montagu, Reginald Morley-Pegge and Michael Thomas.

  Source: Cornucopia

  Date: Not known, but before 2015

  Licence: CC BY-NC