Baroque instruments and bows

Professionals who perform baroque music in a historically informed way use instruments and bows set up as we think they would have been in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They often play at a different pitch from modern concert pitch (usually, but not always, a semitone lower) and tune keyboard instruments (such as harpsichords or organs) slightly differently from the modern way of tuning a piano.

Major differences between modern and baroque instruments

There are several differences between modern and baroque stringed instruments and bows.

Baroque instruments have a straighter neck, a lower bridge, and a shorter fingerboard than their modern equivalents, and use gut strings. They also have a lighter bass bar and sound post. Players of violins and violas tend not to use a chin-rest or shoulder-rest, and cellists play without a spike. The differences give the instruments a characteristic sound and require a slightly different technique (for example, players hold the instruments differently and rely more on the natural resonance of the instrument, using open strings and first position more often than players of modern instruments).

Baroque bows are convex in shape (unlike modern bows, which are concave), are generally lighter and slimmer than modern bows, and are balanced nearer the frog. Down-bows are naturally stronger than up-bows, and the variation in tension over the length of the bow gives a natural diminuendo to a down-bow. To maximise the baroque bow's characteristics, players often employ different bowing and articulation from that used with a modern instrument and bow.