Styrian Brass Music Museum

200 years of musical instruments and brass music: to be seen and heard at the Styrian brass music museum in Ratten. The quality was awarded the Austrian Museum Seal of Quality in 2018.

After admission, a PowerPoint presentation about the history of brass music in Ratten is offered as an introduction, accompanied by music. This is followed by a guided tour of the extensive museum exhibition with around 130 photographs and texts in 6 TV stations, around 60 music group and instrument sound examples via headphones or loudspeakers, including the replica band from 1895. All image and sound presentations can be selected by the visitor at the touch of a button.

From the entire museum instrument collection, around 70 musical instruments are on display in the showcases, including rarities from the brass and woodwind instrument genres from around 1820, including rare exhibits such as an ophicleide, the Aida trumpet and the Kuhlo horn. The museum’s collection of sheet music consists mainly of manuscripts from 1829 onwards, comprising around 800 pieces of music and around 8,000 individual parts, some of which can be seen in a display case. Life-size figures of musicians in traditional costume or uniforms, as they performed over the past 100 years, are on display.

All in all, the emergence, development and current existence of an important cultural institution in a rural village such as Ratten in the Upper Feistritztal region, also as an example for many comparable villages in Styria.