The building of the Museo Nacional de la Musica was built by a wealthy Creole merchant as a residence in 1905. Later, it was occupied by another aristocratic Cuban family. In 1936 the government took the possession of the residence to install the Secretary of State. In 1971 the headquarter of the Museum and the National Music Archive was established in this building. After a restoration in 1981, it opened its doors to the public with ten exhibition halls. In 1998 the Musical Information and Documentation Center "Odilio Urfé" was incorporated in the museum, so that it received the name the Museo Nacional de la Música. In 2007 the collection of the museum was moved to the building on the Obrapia street to be able to carry out a through restoration in the old building, thereby increasing the quality of the services, updated with the equipment of the latest technology.

Currently, the building on the Capdevila street #1 is under restoration and the the Museo Nacional de la Música is rendering service to the public in the building on the Obrapia street #509, between the Berneza and the Villegas streets.

As mentioned before, the Museo Nacional de la Música came to existence by joining the Museum and the National Music Archive and the Musical Information and Documentation Center "Odilio Urfé".

The Museum and the National Music Archive was established under the direction of the pianist, pedagogue and researcher María Antonieta Henríquez. The majority of the collections of the museum consisted of important donations, such as musical instruments, works of art, furniture, musical players and documents.

The Musical Information and Documentation Center "Odilio Urfé" dates back to 1949, when the Musical Institute of Folklore Investigations (Instituto Musical de Investigaciones Folklóricas) was established by the pianist and musicologist Odilio Urfé González. The objectives of the institute were collecting, preserving, studying and disseminating the Cuban musical heritage for all times. After a self-sacrificing work of 15 years, in that the institute remained standing only by the support of its members, it passed to the hands of the National Council of Culture that added the pedagogical function to it, by changing its name to Cuban Music Seminar in 1964. After the death of Odilio Urfé González, it served only as a documentation center that constituted essentially of the private manuscript collection of the Urfé family from the 19th to 20th centuries. The Musical Information and Documentation Center "Odilio Urfé" is considered the oldest Cuban center that was dedicated to the study and conservation of the Cuban music.

The archive of the museum consists of donations, made by outstanding personalities, such as the pedagogues, musicians, directors of orchestras, founders of academies, as well as institutions related to music, and musical groups. The donations can be grouped in different types of documents (correspondences, manuscripts, personal notes, concert programs, photos, scores, certifications, diplomas, medals, regulations, teaching materials, methods, etc.) that constitute the Cuban musical historical memory. Gaspar Agüero, Jorge Anckermann, Ernesto Lecuona, Rita Montaner, María Muñoz de Quevedo, Odilio Urfé, Gonzalo Roig, Hubert de Blanck are among the most outstanding donators. The archive was enriched also by the donations of the musical groups, such as the unforgettable orchestras Los Caciques, Riverside, Filarmónica , and of the popular groups of the time Casino and Palmas y Cañas , as well as the Music Band of the Central District of Havana, directed by maestro Guillermo Tomás, La Banda Municipal de la Habana, directed by maestro Gonzalo Roig, among others. One should also not forget the donations of the institutions like the María Jones de Castro International Conservatory, the Benjamin Orbón Conservatory, the Normal School of Music, and the Musical Art Club of Santa Clara.

The collection of the museum was enriched by the handwritten scores of important Cuban composers, such as Ernesto Lecuona, Dámaso Pérez Prado, Miguel Faílde and Alejandro García Caturla, and by the the old editions of the scores of José Mauri, Gonzalo Roig, Alejandro García Caturla, Hubert de Blanck, Amadeo Roldán, José White, Eduardo Sanchez de Fuentes, Guillermo Tomás, Erich Kleiber, but the most important document that had a special value, was the original score of the National Anthem. The manuscript scores of Esteban Salas Castro from the 18th century that is considered the first Cuban composer, were without doubt the most ancient among the document collections of the museum. A collection of scores from the old Tacón Theater and the musical theater written by Jorge Anckermann are the unique pieces of the archive of the museum.

The photographic archives and press clippings, on the other hand, are considered among the most complete of their kind in Cuba -fundamentally in Cuban popular music. 

In the library you can find many books about the Cuban musical historiography of the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as some works of the Hispanic American and universal musical literature. The library contains the main publications of music published in Cuba, among them Musicalia, Pro Arte Musical, Clave and the Casa de las Américas Music Bulletin, that deal with musical events that took place on the Island throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries.

The Sound Library contains a lot of sound recordings that belong to the Cuban music of all times, styles and genres (instrumental, popular, symphonic), as well as interviews on the subject of music. They are recorded on almost all types of media, manufactured by the music industry, from cylinders (phonograph records) to DVD’s. There are about 50 cylinders on that the operas, language lessons and hymns were recorded, among which the National Anthem of Cuba and the Invader Anthem (a hymn created by the commander Enrique Loynaz del Castillo in Camagüey in 1895, representing the bravery of those who fell during the fight in 1868) that date back to 1917, stand out.

The façade of the two-storey building is of ashlar masonry. The portico features solid Corinthian columns imitating the Italian renaissance.