Museu de Musica | Music Museum

About Barcelona Music Museum

Hidden within the L'Auditori music hall building is the Barcelona Music Museum, Museu de Musica. The museum consists of more than 2,200 instruments with at least 500 on display. You get to discover the evolution music throughout the ages from the baroque, gothic and 18th to 21st century.

The instruments are preserved in glass cases with descriptions about where and when they are from. The interior of the museum is a classy red carpet with the same shade of red in the glass instrument display cases which contrasts superbly with the wood and brass tones of the actual instruments. The space is well illuminated with low lighting levels like in a theatre or auditorium but with focused light inside the instrument displays.

With a collection size of over 2000 instruments, this is one of the world's most important archives of musical instruments. The 60 plus guitar collection is of particular note containing gut/nylon stringed classical guitars and steel/brass stringed acoustic guitars supplemented by banjo's, ukulele's and mandolins. Stringed instruments from the Middle and far east like Sitar, Yangquan (dulcimer), Erhu and Biwa's are also represented.

The organ and piano section is also noteworthy for it's collection of ornate grand piano's and bellows driven organs. Also within this family of instruments are upright pianolas and Clavichords. The museum has early examples of analogue tape machines and synthesisers. Some folk instruments like the hurdy-gurdy, fiddles and accordions.

The brass section contains small trumpets to enormous tubas with some striking wind instruments that have dragon or serpent mouth horns. Within the brass ad horn section are some vey early gramophones and spectacle music boxes.

Image Gallery for Barcelona Music Museum

Click on any of the 65 images to open full screen gallery player

❮ ❯

Visiting Barcelona Music Museum

As you enter the foyer of the museum you are confronted by a piano, stars and a lift to the first floor where you will find the entrance to the museum next to Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya (ESMUC).

The range of instruments on display inside the museum is very broad, covering percussion, strings, pianos, organs, brass, woodwind, electronic synthesisers, oriental and some exotic pieces that I would not immediately recognise as instruments. Some of the cases are numbered with a headphone symbol so you can listen to how these instruments sound using the App. Download the free audio guide that is available in Catalan, Spanish, English and French.

The museum also contains an interactive room where you can play some instruments.

Museu de Musica Opening hours

• Tuesday & Wednesday: 10:00h to 18:00h
• Thursday: 10:00h to 21:00h
• Friday, Saturday & Sunday: 10:00h to 19:00h
• Closed: Monday's, January 1st & 6th, April 18th, May 1st & 26th, June 24th, August 15th, September 11th, December 8th, 25th & 26th

Getting to Barcelona Music Museum

Address: Carrer de Lepant 150, Barcelona. 08013

The Barcelona Music Museum is nearest to Metro Gloríes on the red (L1) line. Barrcelona Tram also runs up Avinida Meridina with a stop being outside Auditori/Teatre Nacional. Use a T-Casual or Hola-Barcelona Travel card.

Where to stay overnight in the Barcelona Music Museum