The Veriam Music Trust has many rare exhibits, with few being rarer than this original classical-era bassoon reed. More than 200 years old, it is a miracle something so delicate has survived that long.

The Veriam Music Trust is very pleased to announce its latest acquisition, a bassoon designed and made by Edgar Brown, a physicist and acoustician in the department of Physics at King’s College, London, in the 1980s and 90s.

It is little known today that London was a burgeoning centre for instrument making, including woodwind, in the second half of the 18th...