Mechanical Musical Instruments and Historical Sound Storage Media

This collection includes mechanical instruments as well as playback devices such as barrel organs, musical string mechanisms, symphoniums, pneumatic players, as well as disc players utilizing the Edison system. In total, there are over 4000 examples of sound carriers. The collection of approximately 3500 player piano rolls, most of which were produced in the Hupfeld factory, has been catalogued.

Additionally, the collection includes a large number of different-sized wooden rolls for musical clocks as well as some metal rolls for Swiss musical boxes. There are numerous metal and cardboard panels for symphoniums and other mechanical musical instruments, most of which date from the end of the 19th century, a time when these types of instruments were produced in large numbers in Leipzig.

Approximately 200 phonograph rolls document music from the early period of mechanical sound recording.

A sound example includes excerpts of the CD series Instrumentarium Lipsiense: Mechanische Musikinstrumente (Lipsiense Mechanical Musical Instruments).