Consortium member Panagiotis Poulopoulos has published a book in the series ‘Deutsches Museum Studies’. The book concerns the early history and development of the musical instrument collection at the Deutsches Museum in Munich, particularly in relation to issues of provenance and authenticity of stringed instruments.

The book is titled New Voices in Old Bodies: A Study of ‘Recycled’ Musical Instruments with a Focus on the Hahn Collection in the Deutsches Museum.

A large number of historic musical instruments that survive in museums have been drastically transformed through a process of ‘recycling’. Although often leading to the loss or distortion of original features, these ‘recycling’ transformations can also reveal a wealth of information about the history of these artefacts and how they were valued and treated by their various owners and users during their lifetime.

This book presents and analyses several representative cases of ‘recycled’ stringed instruments focusing on the Hans Hahn collection, the first major collection of musical instruments that was acquired by the Deutsches Museum in 1906. Using a combination of object-based and archival research, the book provides a comprehensive insight into the foundation and development of the musical instrument department at the Deutsches Museum in the beginning of the twentieth century while discussing issues of provenance and authenticity of historic instruments.

The book is published in print form (ISBN 978-3-95645-885-9, price: € €29,90), but is also available for free downloading (ISSN 2365-9149, PDF-Download) at the website of the Deutsches Museum here:

http://www.deutsches-museum.de/fileadmin/Content/010_DM/050_Forschung/studies-2-gesamtlayout.pdf

For more info on the series and the book see here:
http://www.deutsches-museum.de/verlag/aus-der-forschung/studies/