Music stirs our emotions and plays a decisive role in constructing our social lives.

The Barcelona Music Museum takes us on an itinerary through the different worlds of music —history and cultures — through musical instruments and from listening to music in the display rooms themselves. There is a collection of nearly two hundred instruments on display, each of which bears the hallmark of the people who made them and used them to make music.

The visit begins with the common elements of music, such as melody, rhythm and timbre. It continues with the audio-visual presentations, travelling from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century with stopovers at two special stages, the Catalan composers’ room and the guitar collection, and ending in the interactive room.

And from the instruments we move on to the experience of music: the Museum organises concerts at which its historical instruments are actually played, which complete the programme at the Auditori, today the Casa de la Música de Barcelona (Music House of Barcelona).