What are period instruments?
Q: What are period instruments?
A: Period instruments are musical instruments which have been made in the same way they were made hundreds of years ago, so that earlier music will sound like it did when it was first composed.
Q: How have musical instruments changed over time?
A: Musical instruments have changed a lot during the last few centuries. Instrument makers have made changes to them, often giving the instruments a bigger sound so that they could be heard well in large concert halls. Orchestras also have increased in size.
Q: Why do people want to hear what music sounded like back in the 17th and early 18th centuries?
A: 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 this music would have sounded like back in these earlier periods (the Baroque period).
Q: What happened to many of the old instruments?
A: Many of the old instruments had survived but had been “modernized”, meaning they had been altered from their original form.
Q: What did instrument makers start doing as a result?
A: As a result, instrument makers started to make new versions of these older instruments using traditional methods and materials, so that they were like those used during earlier periods.
Q: How are these new versions of older musical instruments referred to?
A: These new versions of older musicals are often referred to as "period instruments" (or "authentic Instruments" or "historical Instruments").
Q: Who plays period Instruments?
A: Some musicians and orchestras started playing these period Instruments so that they could recreate how certain pieces of music would originally have sounded.
