KomponistenQuartier Hamburg

In Hamburg's Neustadt, the KomponistenQuartier brings together several private museums that make the city's musical heritage accessible to visitors. The exhibition rooms are located in historically reconstructed townhouses on the south side of the Peterstraße and interweave biographical information with the city's history and the broader historical context.

The museum ensemble includes the Brahms-Museum (since 1971), the Telemann-Museum (opened 2011), and the museums devoted to Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Johann Adolph Hasse, both of which opened in 2015. In May 2018 the collections were expanded to include museums on Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn and on Gustav Mahler. The exhibitions place composers at the centre who are connected to Hamburg and who played a decisive role in shaping European music history in the 18th and 19th centuries, and they present the city's historical musical life.

The exhibitions feature historical instruments and models, including a model of a baroque opera stage, the square piano at which Johannes Brahms taught, a clavichord as preferred by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and a spinet by Thomas Hitchcock dating from 1730.

The supporting association of the KomponistenQuartier was founded at the initiative of several regional foundations and societies, including the Carl‑Toepfer‑Stiftung, the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg, the Hamburger Telemann‑Gesellschaft, the Carl‑Philipp‑Emanuel‑Bach‑Gesellschaft zu Hamburg, the Hasse‑Gesellschaft Bergedorf, the Fanny und Felix‑Mendelssohn‑Gesellschaft Hamburg, the Johannes‑Brahms‑Gesellschaft Hamburg and the Gustav‑Mahler‑Vereinigung Hamburg. A symbolic handing-over of the keys took place on 16 December 2014; the official opening of the museum quarter took place on 19 March 2015.