The music industry’s commercial boom on vinyl and cassette nostalgia masks a shallow pursuit, while classical musicians have for decades unearthed deeper truths through period instruments. This modern retro-future trend, claiming extra warmth or sonic richness, is often based on objectively inferior sound carriers compared to high-resolution digital streams.
For years, classical music has pursued a more genuine authenticity. Musicians and musicologists have obsessed over the origins of their craft, seeking to experience the original sound of instruments and performing cultures. This journey spans from 12th-century Germany with Hildegard of Bingen to 19th-century Vienna, home to Beethoven and Schubert.
David Munrow brought medieval and Renaissance sounds to the mainstream in the 1970s, showcasing instruments like shawms and crumhorns. Later, Roger Norrington and John Eliot Gardiner established ensembles for 17th and 18th-century works. Nikolaus Harnoncourt then extended this ethos to later centuries, influencing orchestras from Schubert to Bruckner.
Unlike the dubious authenticity of vinyl, older classical instruments possess genuinely different qualities of sound and expression. An 18th-century harpsichord, for which Bach wrote, sounds vastly different from a modern Steinway grand piano. The harpsichord’s plucked strings mean notes disappear quickly, while a Steinway creates sustained sound.
This extends to brass and woodwinds. French horns today play in any key, but earlier generations had to physically adjust their instruments for different notes. Similarly, musicians once contended with temperamental gut strings and unreliable reeds. These historical sounds are not ‘worse’; they simply invite different playing styles and new emotional dimensions.
Consider Bach’s Matthew Passion. Karl Richter conducted his massed Munich forces in 1979 for a monumental reading. Paul McCreesh, leading the Gabrieli Consort in 2003, offered a radically different experience. Played nearly twice as fast, with just one voice per part, McCreesh’s version invites empathy and participation in the drama.
Pianist Vikingur Ólafsson confirmed that playing old instruments cannot perfectly recreate past sounds. Our ears, bodies, and listening culture have changed, he explained. Janeane Garofalo’s cameo as Melinda in The Cable Guy, quipping about medieval utensils, offers a similar historical perspective.
The final Proms concerts this season will showcase these retro-future explorers. On Thursday, Arcangelo performs Bach’s B Minor Mass on original instruments. The next night features Mahler’s Ninth symphony from the Mahler Academy Orchestra, using instruments specified by Mahler himself for the Vienna opera in the early 1900s.
These period instruments offer more grain, colour, and directness, revealing the emotional complexities of the music. Such performances, like the Mass in B Minor and Mahler’s 9th at the Proms, possess an authenticity no recording format can reproduce. They are unique human moments, connecting us not to the past, but to the powerful present.
This week Tom has been listening to: On repeat, the Berlin Philharmonic’s Proms with Kirill Petrenko. I know, I’m a broken record on this, but their Elgar and Tchaikovsky was inspired and inspiring: they found new depths of feeling and resonance in every moment. Magic.
