Styrian Brass Music Museum

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

After admission, a PowerPoint presentation on the history of brass music in Ratten, accompanied by music, is offered as an introduction. This is followed by a guided tour through 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 music band from 1895. All image and sound presentations can be selected by the visitor at the touch of a button.

Around 70 musical instruments from the entire museum instrument collection 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 their traditional costumes or uniforms, as they performed over the past 100 years, are on display.

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