Music
Melbourne Conservatorium of Music Musical Instruments Collection: Rare and Historic Examples
These instruments were originally acquired for the use of students and orchestras in Melbourne. They include some wind instruments acquired in the early twentieth century with the support of Dame Nellie Melba, to enable Melbourne's orchestras to adopt the 'normal' pitch of 440 hertz as part of the international move towards standardization. Some of the instruments are regularly used by students and the community, such as the Melbourne Community Gamelan, said to be the finest sounding of all the gamelan in Australia, which was purchased in Madiun, central Java, in 1990.
Grainger Museum
Established in the 1930s by the composer, pianist and folklorist Percy Grainger, to show the 'sources from which composers draw their inspirations'. The collection includes music manuscripts and printed editions by many composers, correspondence, musical instruments, ephemera, photography and fine and decorative arts.
Louise Hanson-Dyer Music Library: Rare Collections
Includes manuscripts of music scores by Australian composers, early imprints of music scores by Australian and European composers and rare books from the 18th century which range from reference works to treatises.
For seventy-five years the music collection amassed by Éditions de l’Oiseau-Lyre's founder, Louise B.M. Dyer - later Louise Hanson-Dyer - remained a private collection. As part of the on-going relationship between the Press and the University of Melbourne, this collection has now been transferred to the Louise Hanson-Dyer Music Library at the University and is now accessible by the international musical and scholarly community. The collection comprises some 250 prints and manuscripts dating from the 15th to the early 19th centuries. It is particularly notable for its collection of French operatic works, British publications, works of the Italian renaissance and books on music theory. The collection has been meticulously catalogued by Denis Herlin and includes a substantial introduction (in French and English) and over fifty black and white plates and is published with the assistance of the Hanson-Dyer Bequest at the University of Melbourne:
Denis Herlin, Catalogue of the Hanson-Dyer Collection - The University of Melbourne, hardback, xxxiv, 170 pp., ISBN 0 7340 3646 9.
The Lyrebird Press has been established at the University of Melbourne to continue the work of Éditions de l’Oiseau-Lyre. Full details are available at http://www.oiseaulyre.com/Lyrebird.htm.