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The Catalog
This catalog site is designed so that it can be searched by keyword, collection, type of instrument, and date. It contains information on instruments in the possession of Duke University, with the exception of modern practice and performance pianos.
Modern Orchestral System
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The Collections
Eddy
De Hen-Bijl
Miller
DUMIC
Collegium
Replica Harpsichords and Fortepianos
Organs
Music Department Instruments
Contact Info
Dr. Brenda Neece, DPhil (Oxon.)
Curator, DUMIC
Box 90665
Durham, NC 27708-0665
USA
Tel: 919-660-3320
Fax: 919-660-3301
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Frans and Willemina De Hen-Bijl Collection
Duke’s Frans & Willemina de Hen-Bijl Collection includes over 200 instruments, 100 reel-to-reel field recordings, and over 1000 slides of musical instruments from all over the world that were collected by prominent Belgian organologist and ethnomusicologist Professor Ferdinand J. de Hen whose main interests are the history and structure of classical European, Indian, and African musical instruments.
Named for his parents, the collection was acquired during his research expeditions. His collecting journeys were often quite exciting. He traveled through much of Afghanistan on horseback collecting instruments. While there he also followed a Khutchi tribe on foot for days without making contact; as de Hen recalled, “They have to invite you otherwise they may shoot you . . . I finally was invited.” Once on his travels he ate bread with currants that turned out to be flies. He also had some interesting adventures in Macedonia: one night he slept in a flea-infested bed on his travels there and one day he was shown around by the mayor of Berovo who was wearing his newest acquisition – a pair of pyjamas. De Hen remembers that in Morocco he was cured by a medicine man: “I was ‘cured’ from fever by members of the Ait bu Guemmez tribe . . . beating the whole night on their drums – a dead man would have got out because of the noise!” In Irian Jaya (New Guinea) he narrowly escaped being kidnapped by the Dani tribe. He ended up spending some time among them and was amused by the fact that the men were completely naked except for calabashes; apparently they took pride in bragging about and comparing calabash sizes. He was adopted twice: once by an old Berber woman in the Ahansali tribe (Morocco) and another time by Princess Thopi in her clan in Swaziland. Even at home he was reminded of his travels: he “had a wonderful butterfly come out in Belgium from an instrument brought back from Swaziland.”
De Hen received his training in Antwerp, Louvain, Cologne, and London. He has degrees in Colonial and Administrative Sciences and Political and Administrative Sciences from the Institute Universitaire des Territoires d’Outremer, Antwerp. He also has a degree in African Linguistics from the University of Louven, and a doctorate in musicology and anthropology from Cologne University, with a dissertation on African instruments. While doing his doctorate he did a research course on African and Indian Music at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London University. Now mostly retired, de Hen has worked as a scientific collaborator and research assistant at the Museum of Instruments in Brussels, as the Director of the Artistic Humanities (Brussels), as Professor of the Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth (Waterloo), and Professor & Head of Department in Musicology at the State University (Ghent), as Professor of the Hoger Instituut voor Dramatische Kunst (Antwerp), and a guest Professor at the University of Keele (UK). In 1987 he was appointed to the Peter Paul Rubens chair at the University of California, Berkeley, he became an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Overseas Sciences (Brussels) in 1989, and a member of the Academie europeenne des Sciences et des Arts (Paris) in 2003. He has also given lectures at Osaka, Kyoto, Cologne, Belfast, Denver, Brussels, Antwerp, and The Hague. He has published seven books and some 250 articles, including a book with Roger Bragard on the history of instruments that has been translated into several languages.