The museum

Museum of music and winter sports in Klingenthal

Klingenthal - the city of accordions
Is there anyone denying that Klingenthal produces a great amount of accordions? It is famous for being the city of music and under the brand „Weltmeister", many accordions are exported into numerous countries throughout the world. Klingenthal also attracts people who like watching and/or doing winter sports. More than 20 athletes who won medals at Winter Olympics and world cups come from the area around mount Aschberg. Our museum informs about Klingenthal itself and its development to become a center of winter sports. Despite a regular exhibition, concerts and events take place. In addition, you can look at special exhibitions occasionally. The Christmas exhibition is especially worth seeing.

Klingenthal, the city of music
For almost 400 years, musical instruments are produced in the region of the Vogtland and Northwestern Bohemia. During the second half of the 19th century, that area became the world‘s center of producing musical instruments. In 1913, the Vogtland produced about three quarters of the world‘s demand of strings, more than the half of mouth organs and about two fifth of bowed instruments and plucked instruments. More than 100 locations of businesses producing musical instruments could be verified. In the year 1871, about 1,000 people worked in that department, the number increased to 10,000 of 19,000 inhabitants in the area of Klingenthal. In the middle of the 1920s, the annual number of mouth organs produced has been 30 to 35 millions, just like one million of accordions. From 1961 to 1985, many departments of producing mouth organs got united and became the „Klingenthaler Harmonikawerk". That‘s where the brand „Weltmeister" developed and still today testifies to the knowledge of building musical instruments in Klingenthal. The company C.A. Seydel Söhne is the oldest one in the world to produce mouth organs. Every year, the international competition of playing accordions takes place in Klingenthal. Enjoy the museum‘s unique documentation of Klingenthal on its way to become the city of music.

Klingenthal, the center of winter sports
Klingenthal - the paradise for doing winter sports. More than 100 kilometers of well-prepared cross-country ski runs , steep and soft downhills attract thousands of tourists every year. The calendar of events of the ski-club VSC Klingenthal is more than busy with many national and international winter sports competitions on the ski jumps and in the cross-country ski runs. More than 20 medalists come from Klingenthal. Famous names like Klaus Ostwald or Matthias Buse are familiar to all addicts of winter sports. The first one to win a medal was Harry Glaß during the Olympic Winter Games in Cortina d‘Ampezzo in 1956. The museum of music and winter sports shows the development of winter sports in Klingenthal, supported by historic documents, photos, sport equipments and models of the ski jumps, true to original.