Hans Meijer

After a Higher Technical College (HTS) course in electrical engineering, Hans Meijer attended the conservatory to study classical guitar where he specialised in playing the romantic guitar; he also studied renaissance and baroque lute music; Spanish and Italian vihuela; and also theorbed baroque and renaissance guitar. While a HTS student he already built his first Flemish harpsichord, followed by copies of original guitars, lutes, vihuelas, harpsichords & clavichords; he also learnt to restore square pianos. This enabled him to acquire a large collection of historical instruments which are now being used in performances of lesser-known or unknown pieces from the early history of these instruments, such as music for renaissance and baroque lute; for renaissance and baroque guitar; romantic guitar; vihuela, virginal and clavichord music; and early romantic piano music. From 1978 Hans Meijer was employed as recording-engineer-editor for Philips Classics. In order to make the most of his acquired knowledge of classical music, instruments and recording techniques, he founded the Foundation Musick's Monument in 1992. The new technical developments of multi-session CDs (combining audio and image on CD-ROM) offered the opportunity in 1996 to combine visual art and music from the same historical period with the musical instruments in his collection. The result was the collaboration with the castle Huis Bergh, which made its art collection available for digitalisation. The Musick's Monument collection of musical instruments enables the production of art from the period 1400-1900, thanks also to the best national and international musicians.