Western Early Music Instruments

Western early music instruments originate from the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods of European history. These instruments often differ significantly from their modern descendants in construction, tuning, and playing technique. Examples include the lute, viol family, recorder, shawm, sackbut, hurdy-gurdy, and various historical keyboard instruments such as the harpsichord and clavichord. Early instruments typically use gut strings, natural materials, and tuning systems that predate modern equal temperament. Interest in these instruments has grown through historically informed performance, which seeks to recreate the sound world of earlier centuries. This collection presents instruments associated with European music prior to the Classical era.