This month's museum pick...

The André Mertens Galleries for Musical Instruments, Metropolitan Museum of Art

By Patrick Totty

Other museums occasionally rival it. Some, like the Getty in Los Angeles, have larger endowments. The Smithsonian surely has far more tchotchkes. But, square inch for square inch, New York City’s Metropolitan Museum is the Big One, the superlative municipal museum. So, it’s no wonder that its musical instrument collection, one of its 21 departments and subdivisions, would be impressive.

The collection holds more than 5,000 musical instruments from six continents, spanning a 2,300-year period. It is, by far, the largest collection of its kind outside of Europe. Among its one-of-a-kind treasures are a 1693 Stradivarius violin that is the only one in existence that has been restored to a Baroque form, featuring a short fingerboard, strings made of gut and a very slightly angled neck. Another is Bartolomeo Cristofori’s 1720 keyboard instrument, acknowledged as the world’s oldest piano.

Perhaps the most endearing datum about the Met’s musical instrument collection is that the museum allows some of the instruments to be featured and played in live performances and lectures. Recent recitals have included African instruments, Spanish guitars and hometown instruments spanning two centuries of New York history.

As New York has slowly rebounded from the Sept. 11 catastrophe, the city has taken stock of itself. What it has found are things it has never lost: a position as the pre-eminent cultural center in America, including the best municipal library system, museums, theaters, dance companies and delis. Americans choosing to stick close to home this year in their summer travels should take a look at a perennial, classic standby.