exploring music

 Here we have some Haydn chamber-music played on "original" instruments. For those who don't speak record-jargon, the adjective invites misinterpretation. Are these, you well might ask, the instruments on which these works were first played? Are we being reassured that these are not the usual cheap copies made of bakelite in Hong Kong? Dare we hope that these are instruments of a kind never heard before by human ear? ...Those in the know, however, will recognize that this is merely record-jargon for "old" instruments--i.e. within a hundred years or so of the time when Haydn was composing the pieces played on them. Since stringed instruments played by good professionals are often old, one may also well ask what the Big Deal is.