Rudman's city: Museum's musical treasure plays to sounds of silence

By BRIAN RUDMAN

On the other side of the wall, a Maori concert party was stomping and chanting its way through its welcome routine. It wasn't, perhaps, the best of times to contemplate the wonders of Auckland Museum's Castle Collection of old European and Asian musical instruments.

But the raw tribal beat from next door did highlight a crucial absence from the museum's instrument gallery. There was no sound. It was like looking at cages of stuffed tui or skylarks and being expected to admire their tuneful calls.

The Castle Collection is in the headlines because of plans to "rationalise" it, which is museum-speak for selling off the junky stuff. As long as that's all that's happening it doesn't seem a matter for alarm. We hoarders know how quickly the spare room fills up while the back is turned.

It's not the cull that worries me, it's the silence. What I want to hear is a tune or two from the lutes and harpsichords and virginals and flutes and balalaikas on display. But as we know, in the world of experts nothing is simple.

And to play or not to play the instruments is a question that has, as yet, no answer. There are worries that playing them might cause damage; that restoration of those in decline might lessen their worth as historical items. The permutations of possible wrong moves are so complicated, indeed, that to do nothing seems to have become the chosen path.

Though not for want of trying by the museum's marketing arm. If you check the museum website (www.akmuseum.org.nz) under "venue hire" you will find yourself being offered the chance to hire the Castle Collection Hall "for an intimate cocktail party or formal banquet ... Subtle lighting and musicians playing instruments from the beautiful Castle Collection complete the mood."

The cost for a three-hour banquet for 60 people, "including cleaning", is $1800.

It's an offer which collection curator Louis le Vaillant confesses to knowing nothing about. He did add that none of the instruments had been played in public since the museum acquired them in 1998.

He also gave the distinct impression that this policy was unlikely to change. Which seems a shame, given the collection's history.

Wellington-based musicians Ronald and Zillah Castle began acquiring early European instruments in 1938, buying both contemporary reproductions and originals. One of the gems of the collection is the 1781 London-made Kirckman single-manual harpsichord, which was landed in 1940.

Several pieces came from the workshops of Arnold Dolmetsch, a pioneer in the building of replica instruments based on historical design and construction methods.

Like true collectors, the Castles once started couldn't stop, and over the years their collection expanded to include an assortment of newly made instruments from China and India along with fascinating musical cul-de-sacs such as the Stroh viola and cello. These have metal horns built into the string instruments to amplify sounds for the first pre-electric gramophone recordings.

The key thing about the Castle Collection was that it was a working museum. The Castles and friends gave recitals at home, in halls and on the radio, using the instruments of their collection to pioneer the early music revival in this country. They bought the instruments and used them to entertain and to evangelise, not to lock away to be seen but not heard.

Auckland-based early music specialist James Tibbles points out some of the pitfalls of playing the old instruments.

With wooden wind instruments it can lead to cracking. With others the act of restoration can destroy the evidence of earlier work on the piece - by the maker and subsequent restorers. This destruction of the historical record is not, it seems, a good thing.

Then there's the very modern matter of self-doubt. What, he says, if we restore it, then in 10 years someone even more enlightened comes along and says our restoration was bad?

There are other conundrums, such as how much of the existing instrument is original anyway, how loud did it sound and so on and so forth.

Increasingly, the safe answer seems to be to leave the old instruments alone and make authentic copies from them instead. At the same time, where possible, the instrument is brought up to playing condition and recordings made from it, so visitors to the museum can hear the item they're examining, in performance.

However it's done, these caged instruments need to be brought back to life. What good are they as mere curios, or at best, pieces of fine furniture?