The National Museum of Music has one of the richest collections in Europe of musical instruments from the 16th to the 21st centuries, of erudite and popular tradition, some of them classified “national treasures”. 

This museum opened in 1994 at the Alto dos Moinhos metro station in Lisbon and closed to the public on October 1, 2023, after which the process of moving it to the north wing of the National Palace of Mafra began. The new space, scheduled to open in 2025, should duplicate the number of items on display, from 250 to 500 and host a collection of more than a thousand musical instruments, along with several scores, phonograms, iconography and assorted documents.

Among the "national treasures" in its collection, it is worth mentioning instruments manufactured in Portugal, such as the harpsichord by Joaquim José Antunes (1758), violins and cellos by Joaquim J. Galrão. Other instruments also worth highlighting for their value and rarity include the harpsichord by Pascal Taskin built in 1782 for King Louis XVI of France, the Boisselot & Fils piano that Franz Liszt brought from France in 1845, the oboe by Eichentopf, or the cello by Antonio Stradivari, which belonged to King Louis.

The project to create a National Museum of Music dates back to 1911, when musicologist Michel'Angelo Lambertini started collecting musical instruments, scores and iconographic pieces from several sources. The project to create a museum would fail, however, was resumed years later by the National Conservatory. Already in the 1970s, the Museum was forced to leave the Conservatory and went through a troubled phase during which its collection was installed first in the Pimenta Palace and then in the National Library and National Palace of Mafra.

Under a joint initiative of Lisbon 94 – European Capital of Culture, the Lisbon Metropolitan and the Portuguese Institute of Museums, a protocol was signed and resulted in the creation of the National Museum of Music at the Alto dos Moinhos metro station.