Musical instruments are simply tools used to bring music to life through the talent and effort of the player: a Stradivarius only sounds good in expert hands.The technique and approach of the player are therefore just as important as the instrument in shaping the sound. However, if many people today find that most major orchestras produce a ‘standardised’ sound, this is due in part to the instruments they use . Since the end of the 19th century, technical advances have made it easier to play ‘contemporary’ music, but such improvements often mean that instruments lose in colour and articulation what they gain in power and technical facility. In contrast to the smooth, homogeneous ‘perfect' orchestral sound, with long sustained lines and a saturated sound space, as achieved, say, by the Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of Karajan – some musicians have wanted to affirm the personalityof tone by returning to the dimensions and characteristics of early instruments.
The use of gut strings on string instruments allows for a finer, and often warmer sound and early bows an contribute to a clearer, more varied articulation. From the beginning of the 19th century, the constant increase in the weight of bows, the length of the hair and the number of hairs used has resulted in a heavier, louder yet less diversified sound. Likewise, vibrato would previously only have been used by the soloist for the purposes of ornamentation, but towards the beginning of the 20th century it gradually became an integral part of expression, and vibrato playing has now become the norm.
Throughout the 19th century, wind instruments underwent a vast number of technical ‘improvements’ which involved adding keys, and modifying axial canals and mouthpieces. These changes sometimes resulted in new chromatic possibilities for the instrument.Wooden flutes, which predate the ('Böhm') key system, offer on most notes, a wide range of alternative fingerings which differ in intensity, intonation and colour, thereby providing the player with a highly flexible sound. On a modern flute, however, all the semitones sound the same and the sound is comparatively uniform. Mastering an early instrument requires years of work but such effort makes it possible to highlight and reveal the variety of instrumental colours.Each tone of the scale has its own character and frequently, the composers who wrote for these instruments knew about such particularities and exploited them in their music. Furthermore, since the sound of the orchestral desk on period instruments is less overwhelming and the volume is lower: many details of the orchestral fabric become perfectly discernible.
The use of period instruments also means that the dynamic and intensity markings written by composers on the score are intelligible. It is almost impossible for a modern orchestra to remain faithful to the original score – in that case the brass instruments for example would often cover up the sounds of the rest of the orchestra. Modern editions have thus changed the ‘errors’ of the score so as to maintain the tonal balance of the orchestra. The use of period instruments demonstrates that such ‘errors’ were in fact nothing of the kind; the composers were simply writing for the instruments key knew.