While the music industry sees a commercial boom in retro formats like vinyl and cassettes, classical music has long explored historical authenticity through period instruments. Unlike the claimed sonic richness of vinyl, which is objectively worse than high-resolution digital streams, older instruments in classical cultures offer genuinely different sound qualities.
Musicians and musicologists have dedicated decades to understanding and recreating the sounds of earlier centuries. Figures such as David Munrow, Roger Norrington, John Eliot Gardiner, and Nikolaus Harnoncourt have been instrumental in bringing medieval, Renaissance, and later classical music to wider audiences using period instruments.
The sound and feel of a harpsichord, for example, is vastly different from a modern grand piano. Similarly, earlier versions of French horns, strings, and woodwinds presented unique challenges and temperamental realities for musicians. These differences, however, are not considered 'worse' but rather invite alternative playing styles and open up new dimensions of feeling for listeners.
This week, the Proms will showcase these developments. On Thursday, Arcangelo musicians will perform Bach’s B Minor Mass on original instruments. The following night, the Mahler Academy Orchestra will play Mahler’s Ninth symphony using instruments that match the specifications Mahler himself ordered for the Vienna opera in the early 1900s.