An essential first step in the preparation of a historically informed performance is the choice of an appropriate instrument. As Chapter 2 pointed out, different repertories were written for different instruments and it is therefore necessary to know where and when instruments were popular. It is also important to know about the resources of those instruments; decisions about registration and pedalling, for example, depend on knowledge of instrument specifications.

Unfortunately, the harpsichords, early pianos and other keyboard instruments now in use do not truly reflect the variety of instruments that existed in earlier centuries. Accidents of history have meant that certain types of instrument have survived and have been copied in large numbers while others are scarcely ever encountered. So, for example, a large proportion of the harpsichords currently in use are copies of early Italian, Ruckers-style, or eighteenth-century French instruments, whereas early German, French and English types, as well as their eighteenth-century Austrian counterparts, are rare. Similarly, there are many reproductions of c. 1800 Viennese pianos, but very few copies of early or mid-eighteenth-century types. Nevertheless, with some careful investigation it is possible to become acquainted with the main characteristics of a representative selection of the instruments for which keyboard composers wrote. This chapter provides an overview of the subject, but much more detailed accounts will be found in the literature cited in endnotes and in the Select Bibliography. Recordings can also give an impression of the sound of the instruments.