This is an invaluable compendium for anyone who needs to know about conserving historical musical instruments. It is, admittedly, highly technical, and most suited to the expert conservator, curator or informed professional in a related field. It provides a wealth of advice about maintaining old instruments, and it is not a book for the generalist, for whom tables of equal temperament frequencies, advice about drill bits and synthetic resins may be somewhat intimidating! Thus, the title could be misleading to the average educationalist responsible for a modest modern collection, although a dedicated performer involved in historically authentic performance issues might well find it a worthwhile addition to their bookshelf.
The author spent 30 years as a conservator of musical instruments at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, having responsibility for 5,000 instruments. His published credentials are impressive, and his extensive and in-depth knowledge have been rewarded by awards and prizes.
The book is organized as a series of A-Z entries on conservation issues. There are headings for the major musical instrument groups – woodwind, brass, stringed keyboard, various stringed instrument headings, organ, clavichord, harpsichord and so on. There is no separate heading for percussion instruments, although some do appear in the very detailed index at the back – for example, there is advice about the parchment and vellum used to make percussion instruments. You will also find guidance about unexpected or little known instruments such as the hurdy-gurdy. The rest of the entries are primarily technical, as one might expect, covering materials, varnishes, cleaning agents and specialist areas such as metallurgy or metalworking, tuning and temperament.
The Select Bibliography is a fairly extensive 14 pages, combining the best of modern and historical scholarship; and the index is almost as long, providing a multitude of entry points to the information in the main body of the book.
For such a detailed and informative volume, it might be added, the book is very competitively priced.
