Cornetts and Crumhorns at ´Sammlung alter Musikinstrumente´

The project focuses a radioscopic cone beam tomographic survey of 27 wood wind instruments preserved in the Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. Until now there was no such survey of comparable magnitude done. The historic exceptional and monetary precious museums objects from the Renaissance and early Baroque under which for instance the eldest dated crumhorns are found, represent a rare nucleus of the existent organological cultural heritage which was not researched until now. The project will be done together with the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria (Fachhochschule Oberösterreich) campus Wels as a sub-contractor, because this institution offers the special kind of technical equipment for computer-tomographic measurements and the visualisation of the data admissible for the fragile and valuable objects. From the view of conservation and preservation these measurements made with a cone beam tomographer RayScan 250 by Waelischmiller on the campus in Wels are absolute inoffensive for the objects. The analysis and interpretation of data will be done in co-operation of the museums and the universities employees, as it turned out to be optimal during the probationary measurement. The results of the survey will be accessible for the broad public via established internet data-bases (object data-base of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna) in addition they will be discussed in international organological publications. Moreover the museum plans the editing of two catalogues based on the data of the proposed research project helping to put these rare instruments back on the map. By virtue of the trial measurements it can be foreseen that the results of the proposed project provide a new insight into the process of early musical instrument production and the musical and technical function as well as into material structure of the objects which open up a considerable increase of new knowledge in the fields of musicology, documentation respectively conservation of museums objects, instrument making and musical performance-practise.

The project focuses a radioscopic cone beam tomographic survey of 27 wood wind instruments preserved in the Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. Until now there was no such survey of comparable magnitude done. The historic exceptional and monetary precious museums objects from the Renaissance and early Baroque under which for instance the eldest dated crumhorns are found, represent a rare nucleus of the existent organological cultural heritage which was not researched until now. The project will be done together with the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria (Fachhochschule Oberösterreich) campus Wels as a sub-contractor, because this institution offers the special kind of technical equipment for computer-tomographic measurements and the visualisation of the data admissible for the fragile and valuable objects. From the view of conservation and preservation these measurements made with a cone beam tomographer RayScan 250 by Waelischmiller on the campus in Wels are absolute inoffensive for the objects. The analysis and interpretation of data will be done in co-operation of the museums and the universities employees, as it turned out to be optimal during the probationary measurement. The results of the survey will be accessible for the broad public via established internet data-bases (object data-base of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna) in addition they will be discussed in international organological publications. Moreover the museum plans the editing of two catalogues based on the data of the proposed research project helping to put these rare instruments back on the map. By virtue of the trial measurements it can be foreseen that the results of the proposed project provide a new insight into the process of early musical instrument production and the musical and technical function as well as into material structure of the objects which open up a considerable increase of new knowledge in the fields of musicology, documentation respectively conservation of museums objects, instrument making and musical performance-practise.