Carnegie Hall

Period instruments are musical instruments that were built in a pasthistorical era, or that were built in the 20th or 21st centuries but replicate the designs of Renaissance and Baroque instruments. They are also the kinds of instruments you’ll most likely encounter at a HIP (or historically informed performance) concert.

Our short guide to historically informed performance describes the practice more generally, while this article dives into the kinds of instruments you might encounter at a HIP concert. It will also give you a sense of what to expect at a concert that offers performances of Renaissance or Baroque music played on historical or period instruments and using performance practice techniques developed prior to 1750.

What does HIP sound like?

The scores for early music provide us with only a skeleton of what a performance at the time might sound like. Many of the details that appear in modern scores today were not notated in scores from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Because of this, HIP performances will all sound different depending on the interpretation of the ensemble.

All HIP performances, however, offer the chance to experience familiar works from the Renaissance and Baroque periods in new ways. While there is no single “authentic” performance of a piece of early music, HIP gets us closer to the sounds expected by Baroque and Renaissance composers.

Ensemble

A HIP ensemble will look different from any modern chamber group. The instruments will be different (as described in the section below), and the group will usually be held together by a basso continuo section—this refers to the instruments that support the soloists by playing the bass line and filling in the implied harmonies. HIP ensembles tend to be smaller than modern orchestras. You’ll see and hear the musicians communicating in unique ways during a HIP performance.

Tuning and Pitch

HIP ensembles will use a variety of tuning systems based on the date of their repertoire and the needs of the ensemble. Differences in tuning can bring out certain chords and give a new harmonic edge to works that we normally hear in equal temperament, our modern tuning system.

Articulation

In HIP performances, articulation is key to understanding and appreciating early music. While 19th-century performance practice required instrumentalists to focus on sostenuto and legato playing, HIP ensembles use more distinction between separation of notes and sustained playing in order to achieve a special clarity of sound.

Ornamentation

HIP performers train in musical improvisation and ornamentation to enhance the music originally written by the composer. It was normal to ornament both instrumental and vocal music in order to make the performance more engaging and virtuosic.

Period Instruments

Strings

Instruments in the violin family include the violin, the viola, and the cello. In the Baroque period, these instruments were smaller and did not come with additional devices such as chin rests, endpins, or shoulder rests. Strings were made of animal gut, not metal, and bows were convex, rather than concave. This meant that the stringed instruments had a quieter, more mellow sound and were more agile than modern instruments.

Winds

In the Baroque, the main wind instruments included oboe, traverso flute, recorder, and bassoon. Earlier versions of these instruments also existed during the Renaissance. These instruments did not initially have keys, so it was difficult for wind players to produce sharp and flat notes. The instruments were also made of wood, not metal or plastic, changing the quality of the sound considerably.

Brass

Like the winds, early brass instruments such as the natural trumpet and natural horn were not originally built with valves—thus the term “natural.” For many years, these instruments were limited to playing certain keys and notes in different octaves. The difficulty of much brass music from the Baroque period signifies that performers of great skill and talent were playing.

Keyboards

While the piano was invented in 1701, it would not become popular until the late 1700s. Instead, the harpsichord, organ, and clavichord dominated. The clavichord was popular in the home. The harpsichord was used in both domestic and public performance settings. While harpsichords look like pianos on the outside, inside the strings are plucked instead of hammered. This allows for a bright sound but the mechanism does not allow players to control dynamics—loud or soft—in the same way as on a piano.

The organ differs again: It creates its sound from air blowing through pipes. Because of its many stops, the organ can produce different dynamics and even different timbres depending on the needs of the performance.

Plucked Strings

In the Baroque period, plucked strings—including guitars, lutes, and theorbos (big lutes with long necks)—were used as accompaniment instruments in ensembles.

Voices

Even singers sang differently in early music. Because performing venues were smaller, singers did not have to project their voices across a broad space, and so they focused on other aspects of technique such as ornamentation, a smooth legato sound, and agility.

The most famous Baroque singers were castrati, or men who underwent an operation before hitting puberty that preserved their high voices. Today, HIP ensembles usually hire countertenors (men who have trained to sing powerfully in their falsetto range) or sopranos to sing the music written for castrati. Women sang in public throughout Europe except in Catholic and some Protestant church choirs.

Over time, technological changes have made instruments more flexible, more comfortable to play (and less likely to injure professional musicians), and louder to fill our large, modern concert halls.

Photography: Jordi Savall and Le Concert des Nations by Richard Termine