More than 300 miniature keyboard instruments can be seen at the Toy Piano gallery in Wrocław. The exhibition includes unique specimens from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Japan, Brazil, Italy, as well as Israel, North Korea, Bulgaria and the former Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union.

Toy pianos were first popular toys, but at some point, they became the focus of contemporary music composers and began to be used by professionals on stage.

The oldest exhibits are 150 years old. In the gallery, there is a toy piano created by the Schoenhut company, founded in 1872, and magnificent instruments from the Parisian Michelsonne manufactory, which burned down in the late 1960s. There is also the only Polish toy piano, produced in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the “Precyzja” company from Kielce. Some of the instruments have keys decorated with images of animals, others have miniature candlesticks, moving figurines, e.g. with Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse or a picture with a scene of… an air raid on a piano from communist Korea.

The exhibition was prepared by Paweł Romańczuk, owner of the collection and founder of the band Małe Instrumenty. The musical group focuses on sound explorations in the realm of professional and unusual instruments. In 2010, it recorded an album of Frédéric Chopin’s music performed only on small pianos and grand pianos. Romańczuk has also written a book on the history of the toy piano.

The gallery is not just a space for sightseeing, but a zone of culture. There are plans for concerts by performers who promote original and unusual sounds in their work. 

“I hope to create a space here for artistic presentations around new music including intimate concerts, installations, exhibitions, screenings, workshops. I would very much like this place to have its own identity, and the programme offered here to be related to what I have been doing for 17 years: promoting the culture of the musical instrument”, announces Romańczuk.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński