Piano Museum

The Piano Museum holds over a hundred historic instruments from the 18th century through to the 20th, collected from Europe, America, and Japan. The collection includes early fortepianos, elaborate Victorian parlour instruments, and concert grands of historical significance. Several are in playable condition and are demonstrated by staff at scheduled times. The acoustic pianos in the main gallery have been maintained to playing standard, and the sound of a Bechstein or Blüthner in a room full of attentive visitors has a quality that recorded music cannot replicate.

The museum occupies a restored colonial villa whose architecture — broad verandas, high-ceilinged rooms — suits the instruments well. An adjacent building houses the only dedicated organ museum in the world, with a collection of mechanical organs, barrel organs, and harmoniums that represent the full range of keyboard instruments that arrived on the island with the missionary community. The organ demonstrations, where staff operate the antique machines, are genuinely entertaining for visitors of any age.

things to do museum
A story
The concentration of pianos on Gulangyu in the 19th century was a direct consequence of the island's foreign missionary community, who brought instruments for worship and teaching. At the peak of the international settlement era, the island of roughly 20,000 residents had more pianos per capita than anywhere else in China — a statistic that sounds implausible but is documented in missionary records. The musical tradition this created persisted: the island has produced a remarkable number of professional pianists relative to its size, including Yin Chengzong, who performed at the opening ceremony of the 1972 Nixon-Mao meeting.

Other places in Things to Do