Why not just perform Classical and Romantic music on modern instruments?
A. We can and we still do. However, we find that hearing the music on original instruments opens our ears and our minds to new and exciting interpretations, which in turn allows our audiences to experience the music in a new way. For one thing, because our instruments are similar to those the composers imagined or played when they wrote, aspects of their music that are entirely obscured by modern instruments emerge effortlessly on the old instruments. Paradoxically, the music of the old masters actually sounds more modern on original instruments, because composers were stretching the instruments to their full capacity, exploring new tone colors and blends between instruments that still surprise us today when we hear them the way they were meant to be heard. Also, there is something very modern about the sound of the old instruments the string instruments scratch and sigh, the winds bellow and bleat, the pianos jangle. These instruments are softer, but frequently rougher and more intens
