Awards: Diapason d'Or Choc from the French magazine Classica This Guide to Period Instruments endeavours to answer the questions that every lover of early music has about the instruments used in these periods of music history. Text and recorded excerpts describe the origin and the development of every musical instrument from the Middle Ages to the end of the 18th century and place them in their historical context. There is a completely new presentation booklet, over 200 pages long and abundantly illustrated, as well as eight CDs of recorded examples of the instruments that shed new light upon major periods of music history. These excerpts have been drawn from the Ricercar catalogue for the most part and are completed by new recordings made for the purpose as well as by material made available to us by other specialist recording labels. This Guide to Period Instruments is a perfect synthesis of the music lover's thirst for knowledge with the sheer pleasure of hearing these historical instruments.
