Ringve Museum is

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, 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 ...

'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 th ...

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 aspe ...

and

musical instruments A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who pl ...

, 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, an ...

. Ringve Farm was the childhood home of the Danish-Norwegian nobleman, Peter Tordenskjold. 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 Trondheim Fjord or Trondheimsfjorden (), an inlet of the Norwegian Sea, is Norway's third-longest fjord at long. It is located in the west-central part of the country in Trøndelag county, and it stretches from the municipality of Ørland i ...

, the park forming

botanical gardens A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens, an ...

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 th ...

). 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 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 adopt a socialist form of government ...

. 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 Artur Schnabel (17 April 1882 – 15 August 1951) was an Austrian-American classical pianist, composer and pedagogue. Schnabel was known for his intellectual seriousness as a musician, avoiding pure technical bravura. Among the 20th centur ...

, Lilly Krauss,

Ignaz Friedman Ignaz Friedman (also spelled ''Ignace'' or ''Ignacy''; full name ''Solomon (Salomon) Isaac Freudman(n)'', yi, שְׁלֹמֹה יִצְחָק פֿרײדמאַן; February 13, 1882January 26, 1948) was a Polish pianist and composer. Critics (e.g ...

Percy Grainger Percy Aldridge Grainger (born George Percy Grainger; 8 July 188220 February 1961) was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist who lived in the United States from 1914 and became an American citizen in 1918. In the course of a long an ...

and Kirsten Flagstad, 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 d ...

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 s ...

clavichord The clavichord is a stringed rectangular keyboard instrument that was used largely in the Late Middle Ages, through the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras. Historically, it was mostly used as a practice instrument and as an aid to compositi ...

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 ...

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 and casts of his hands. There are also

watercolours Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to ...

George Sand Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil (; 1 July 1804 – 8 June 1876), best known by her pen name George Sand (), was a French novelist, memoirist and journalist. One of the most popular writers in Europe in her lifetime, bein ...

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 ...

about Chopin and

Liszt Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...

. 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 l ...

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 ...

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, musical toys and a Janko 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). ''Fu ...

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, so ...

by Sax (son) of 1907, along wide early

electronic instruments An electronic musical instrument or electrophone is a musical instrument that produces sound using electronic circuitry. Such an instrument sounds by outputting an electrical, electronic or digital audio signal that ultimately is plugged into a ...

and a 1948

jukebox A jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that will play a patron's selection from self-contained media. The classic jukebox has buttons, with letters and numbers on them, which are used to sele ...

*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), 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