Ringve Museum is

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

's national

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

for

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...

and musical instruments, with collections from all over the world.

Background

Ringve Museum is located in the historic Ringve Farm in

Trondheim Trondheim ( , , ; sma, Tråante), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2020, it had a population of 205,332, was the third most populous municipality in Norway, and ...

. Ringve Farm was the childhood home of the Danish-Norwegian nobleman,

Peter Tordenskjold Peter Jansen Wessel Tordenskiold (28 October 1690 – 12 November 1720), commonly referred to as Tordenskjold (), was a Norwegian nobleman and flag officer who spent his career in the service of the Royal Dano-Norwegian Navy. He rose to the rank ...

. It is situated in a park on the

Lade Lade may refer to: People * Brendon Lade (born 1976), an Australian rules footballer * Sir John Lade (1759–1838), a baronet and Regency horse-breeder * Heinrich Eduard von Lade (1817–1904), a German banker and amateur astronomer * The Jarls o ...

peninsula just outside

with a view over the Trondheimsfjord, the park forming botanical gardens run by NTNU (the

Norwegian University of Science and Technology Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe *Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway *Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including the ...

). The first house on the site was built in 1521, but the current group of buildings dates from the 1740s onwards. When the estate was auctioned in 1878, it was purchased by the Bachke family and one of the sons, Christian Anker Bachke (1873–1946) acquired the estate in 1919. In late 1919, he married Russian émigré Victoria Rostin Bachke, an artist who fled from the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and ad ...

. The couple had no children but put their considerable energies into their love of music and assembling a collection of historical musical instruments, which now numbers around 1,500 instruments, alongside other artifacts associated with music – pictures, recordings. The museum is based on the private collection of founder Victoria Bachke and was opened to the public in 1952. Jon Voigt (1928–1997) succeeded Victoria Bachke as director in 1963 and continued until 1997. Over the years many famous musicians visited Ringve, including Artur Schnabel, Lilly Krauss, Ignaz Friedman, Percy Grainger and

Kirsten Flagstad Kirsten Malfrid Flagstad (12 July 1895 – 7 December 1962) was a Norwegian opera singer, who was the outstanding Wagnerian soprano of her era. Her triumphant debut in New York on 2 February 1935 is one of the legends of opera. Giulio Gatti-Casaz ...

, as well as the artist,

Edvard Munch Edvard Munch ( , ; 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter. His best known work, ''The Scream'' (1893), has become one of Western art's most iconic images. His childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement and the dr ...

Exhibition

The public exhibitions are divided in two parts: the Manor House and the Barn.

The Manor House

The period interiors of the Ringve Manor House provide the setting for themed rooms of working – mainly keyboard – instruments. In this section, open by guided tour only, the guides (often graduate music students) play an appropriate piece of music (or extract) as the tour proceeds. The first room is called the Mozart room and contains a

spinet A spinet is a smaller type of harpsichord or other keyboard instrument, such as a piano or organ. Harpsichords When the term ''spinet'' is used to designate a harpsichord, typically what is meant is the ''bentside spinet'', described in this ...

, clavichord and a domestic or house organ, from the 18th century. A

Murano Murano is a series of islands linked by bridges in the Venetian Lagoon, northern Italy. It lies about north of Venice and measures about across with a population of just over 5,000 (2004 figures). It is famous for its glass making. It was on ...

glass

chandelier A chandelier (; also known as girandole, candelabra lamp, or least commonly suspended lights) is a branched ornamental light fixture designed to be mounted on ceilings or walls. Chandeliers are often ornate, and normally use incandescent li ...

hangs from the ceiling. The next room is called the ‘Beethoven’ and contains a harp piano of 1870 by Dietz, and a piano of type favoured by Beethoven. A room dedicated to Chopin comes next, with examples of the composer's preferred pianos, as well as a

death mask A death mask is a likeness (typically in wax or plaster cast) of a person's face after their death, usually made by taking a cast or impression from the corpse. Death masks may be mementos of the dead, or be used for creation of portraits. It ...

and casts of his hands. There are also watercolours by George Sand and

memorabilia A souvenir (), memento, keepsake, or token of remembrance is an object a person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it. A souvenir can be any object that can be collected or purchased and transported home by the traveler as a m ...

about Chopin and Liszt. A card table and sofa that came from Chopin's Paris home, and which were inherited by his Norwegian pupil Thomas Tellefsen are on display. Ringve Museum, Trondheim - IMG 8809

Upstairs there is a room based around singers Elisabeth Wiborg and

Adelina Patti Adelina Patti (19 February 184327 September 1919) was an Italian 19th-century opera singer, earning huge fees at the height of her career in the music capitals of Europe and America. She first sang in public as a child in 1851, and gave her la ...

and includes a piano which Patti insisted on being accompanied. This is followed by a display of

Hardanger fiddle A Hardanger fiddle ( no, hardingfele) is a traditional stringed instrument considered to be the national instrument of Norway. In modern designs, this type of fiddle is very similar to the violin, though with eight or nine strings (rather than fo ...

s, a ‘ Grieg’ room, a room of instruments associated with church and worship, and finally a room of curiosities, including a Cecilium, a Norwegian-made

barrel-organ A barrel organ (also called roller organ or crank organ) is a France, French mechanical musical instrument consisting of bellows and one or more ranks of organ pipe, pipes housed in a case, usually of wood, and often highly decorated. The basic ...

, musical toys and a

Janko Janko is a name that derives from a diminutive form of the name ''Jan'' (Slavic languages), '' Janez'' (Slovenian), '' János'' (Hungarian), and ''Yakov''/''Jacob'' (Ashkenazi Jewish). It also derives from the vernacular form of Latin ''Johannes'' ...

piano.

Fire

The manor was badly hit by a fire in the attic and second floor on 3 August 2015.

The Barn (Museet på Låven)

The collections on display in the Barn are divided in two parts: *Instruments mainly associated with

western classical Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...

and

popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fun ...

over four centuries. A Kirkman harpsichord of 1767, an Erberle viola d’amore of 1755, a five-octave Stein piano of 1783, a

soprano saxophone The soprano saxophone is a higher-register variety of the saxophone, a woodwind instrument invented in the 1840s. The soprano is the third-smallest member of the saxophone family, which consists (from smallest to largest) of the soprillo, sop ...

by Sax (son) of 1907, along wide early electronic instruments and a 1948 jukebox. Ringve Museum, Trondheim - IMG 8764

*Folk instruments from all around the world, including a Runebomme (a type of

Sami drum Acronyms * SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft * Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company * South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise net ...

), a Tibetan zang-dang (

horn Horn most often refers to: *Horn (acoustic), a conical or bell shaped aperture used to guide sound ** Horn (instrument), collective name for tube-shaped wind musical instruments *Horn (anatomy), a pointed, bony projection on the head of various ...

), a nadomo (arched harp) from Congo and hardanger fiddles.

Ringve Botanical Garden

The Ringve Botanical Garden was established in 1973. The botanic garden has three main parts, the 19th-century garden, the arboretum, and the systematic section. The botanical gardens consist of an

arboretum An arboretum (plural: arboreta) in a general sense is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, man ...

(species from the Northern hemisphere) around a lake, a floral maze representing a systematic presentation of perennial plants, a Renaissance (herbal) Garden and, in front of the Manor House the historical ‘English’ garden of the 1800s.''Ringve Botanical Garden'' (BGCI: The global network)
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References

Other sources

*Guldahl A.S., Guttormsen S., Kjeldsberg P.A., Krouthén M. (2005) ''Ringve – a world apart'' (Trondheim: Ringve) * Voigt, Jan (1984) ''Fru Victoria til Ringve'' (Cappelen)

External links

Ringve Music Museum websiteRingve Botanical Garden website
{{Coord, 63, 26, 51, N, 10, 27, 15, E, type:landmark_region:NO, display=title Music museums Museums established in 1952 Botanical gardens in Norway Museums in Trondheim Tourist attractions in Trondheim Buildings and structures in Trondheim Music organisations based in Norway