Period instruments
instruments in the style of the time when the piece was composed / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The period instruments are musical instruments which have been made in the same way they were made hundreds of years ago. This is done so that earlier music will sound like it did when it was first composed.
Musical instruments have changed a lot during the last few centuries. Composers like Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) wrote music for instruments which sounded differently from the way they do today. Although most of the orchestral instruments we use nowadays were already in use in Bach’s day, instrument makers have made changes to them. These changes often gave the instruments a bigger sound so that they could be heard well in large concert halls. Orchestras also have increased in size.
During the 20th century musicians started to realize that the way we play the music of Bach and other composers was making the music sound different from how it would have been first heard. People became interested in hearing what the music would have sounded like back in the 17th and early 18th centuries (the Baroque period). Few of the old instruments still existed and many that had survived had been “modernized”. So instrument makers started to make instruments in the old ways. Some musicians and orchestras started to play these instruments. The instruments are often called “period instruments” (or "authentic instruments" or "historical instruments") because they are made so that they are like instruments of earlier periods.