| Another fun aspect to throw into the mix is performance practice - I have heard some players playing on baroque and natural trumpets, yet blowing them like a modern orchestral instrument. Sometimes conductors want the instruments to look "authentic" yet want it to sound like every other group they work with.
Other players approach the early music with a certain degree of historically informed performance practice even when playing on modern instruments.
Purely personally, I would prefer people to play stylishly on whatever instrument they are holding, rather than make a fuss about playing on the "correct" instrument. After all - the rest of the orchestra often won't be working on period instruments, the players are probably not playing in the same way as the players of the age did and the audience are not going to be hearing things in the same way.
That said - historically informed performance groups are of great interest to me. Hearing Crispian play on the actual trumpet that some baroque pieces were written for made me think very differently about the way I approached the works, even though I was playing them on a piccolo trumpet.
The only time I find myself on historically accurate instruments is when playing Gilbert & Sullivan - I have got a couple of 1920's Hawkes & Son trumpets (both with the rotor Bb/A mechanism) and when I can persuade the other guy that it is a good idea, I take both along for the week. Not only does it make the transposition a doddle (you don't transpose, you just change the key) but the tone and balance you can get is incredible. They have a lighter feel than the modern orchestral instruments and playing under the singers is comparitively much easier. |