ECR team

Contents

Decree no. 95-1300 of December 19, 1995, creating the Établissement public de la Cité de la musique, created the Musée de la musique within the establishment and transferred to it the management of national collections previously under the responsibility of the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse (CNSMD). It is assigned “the role of adviser and coordinator of the network of public collections in the field of music” and specifies that it “has, among other things, an instrument research and restoration laboratory”.

History and research activities

The modern history of the Musée de la Musique began in 1961, when Georges Henri Rivière initiated the idea of a Musée de la Musique alongside Geneviève Thibault, the new director of the Musée Instrumental at the Paris Conservatoire de Musique et de Danse, which she headed until 1973. As soon as she was appointed, Geneviève Thibault put the Musée Instrumental on an international circuit as founder and then president of a special committee, the Comité international pour les musées et collections d'instruments de musique (CIMCIM). She initiated a real research activity, applying modern means of investigation and analysis to identify and understand the instruments in the collection, while at the same time initiating a “Cooperative Program Research Group” at the CNRS, with the aim of studying “the relationship between the internal structure of instruments and their sound”. Today, the Musée de la Musique's Conservation and Research Team combines the human and physical sciences in the service of musical instrument organology, conservation and restoration.

Its research activity falls within the scope of the study of the material and cultural history of this particular object, which is at once an art object, a technical object and a vehicle for musical and artistic functionality. It contributes to the understanding and protection of the intangible dimension of music, past and present.

The team research projects focus on the study of materials, structures and musical functions of musical instruments and their evolution. They aim to identify the initial methods and objectives of their implementation, to reveal the know-how of an era and a place, and find their direct applications in the design and implementation of conservation choices, particularly concerning the maintenance of playing condition.

ECR team members

Marie-Pauline MARTIN, director of the Musée de la musique

PERMANENT MEMBERS