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History, the written record of human events, has aptly been called selective fiction; intellectual fashions and social preoccupations inevitably bias the interpretation of data chosen from an already incomplete chronicle, making a wholly objective, comprehensive account of the past unattainable. Uncertainty particularly clouds the history of music in performance, for which little direct evidence predates audio recordings. Antique musical instruments, however, offer tangible clues to how music sounded to our forebears.
Investigation of old instruments in terms of their past usage gained scientific footing (within the field now called organology) in the late nineteenth century, when public museums began systematically to collect musical instruments on a large scale. Since that time, the relationship between instrument design and musical style has received increasing attention. As scholarly perspectives change and research brings more information to light, organologists adjust or discredit their predecessors' theories. Still, obsolete histories, like old instruments, have much to teach us, not least to beware of apparent verities.
The approach to the history of musical instruments espoused today by many musicians as well as the general public owes much to late nineteenth-century antiquarians and museum curators whose views of how instruments evolve were rooted in then-current biological models, notably Charles Darwin's. The concept of biological and technological evolution implicit in typical late nineteenth-century classification systems and museum displays can be represented schematically by a tree whose branches ascend slowly through time toward increasing diversity, complexity, and sophistication.1 The primary force nurturing this growth, so far as instruments are concerned, was commonly thought to be the rise of music as an art form, culminating in the masterworks of Beethoven, Wagner, and the rest of the Romantic pantheon. Where such inspired geniuses led, many believed, instrument makers naturally followed.2
This view of craft subservient to art found apparent support in accounts of dissatisfied musicians' efforts to improve inadequate instruments; Johann Sebastian Bach's practical criticism of various church organs was especially pertinent. However, the significance of such reports could be exaggerated. Philipp Spitta, writing in the 1870s about the "ideal instrument which floated in the mind of Bach," proclaimed that "no instrument but one which should combine the volume of tone of the organ with the expressive quality of the clavichord, in due proportion, could be...