Don replies to my post, that since Bach did not specify instruments for MO and AofF, they should only exist on paper: >John's just playing "word games", operating as if the only way he can >define "HIP" is in the most strict manner. Nyet. My point is that Bach's music is in the polyphony, which can stand alone-- apart from instrumentation. Of course Mahler played "on whatever is available" would certainly be detrimental to his vision of the final product, being that he labored long and hard while orchestrating and revised constantly. >But, neither the HIP movement nor modern instrument performances of past >music is about semantics; it's about *music*. I would go further and say it's about the composer's intentions regarding his music--realized *and*, if I dare say, unrealized. The big question is, would composers like Bach embrace instrumental improvements and demand that the instruments of his time to be thrown in the trash can? Of course we don't know what went on in the composers mind, but we do have hints. Take the Well Tempered Clavier--(the research wasn't hard, found it on page 1) One of the only directives is that these works are to be played in a cantabile, or singing style. With this in mind, would Bach choose the harpsichord, clavichord, the forte piano, or the modern piano? Come now, you know what the answer would be.....natural selection isn't just confined to living things! I understand how increasingly large orchestras can disrupt balance, and instrumental improvements can cause havoc in certain infamous passages, (such as the horn whoops that never made sense in the finale of Berlioz' Sinfonie Fantastique, until the original horns were resurrected), and that strings from posterity can be more agile than their modern couterpart; but I'm not ready to give up modern string resonance and brass/woodwind reliability for advantages that can be readily tended to by an alert conductor and players. If the HIP mov't brought people's attention to these matters, that's great; but it's hard for me to imagine that Verdi would be happy with Gardiner's HIP Requiem, or that Vaughan Williams, the god of glow, would be happy with Argo's release of his music on catgut. (The New Queen's Hall Orchestra) John Smyth