Historical Performance

During the Bachelor and Master of Music at the Historical Performance Department of the HKU Utrecht Conservatorium, you'll learn to approach music from an historical perspective.
Based on historical sources such as instruments and methods, you'll inform yourself on the instrumental techniques and musical aesthetics in a given period and in a given country and its implications for the interpretation of the repertoire, then, and now. A close team of internationally renowned specialists will inform you about the performance practice from the Renaissance to Romanticism.

Instruments: historical violin, historical viola, historical cello, historical bassoon (dulcian), historical trombone and historical hobo, as well as harpsichord (clavichord), viola da gamba (violone), traverso, cornetto and recorder. It is also possible to choose a combination of instruments as a main subject: melody instruments or bass instruments. You can think of a combination of instruments, such as cornetto, recorder and dulcian, or gamba, cello and violone (other combinations are possible as well).

The main subject lessons, ensemble lessons, projects and master classes are supported by theoretical classes. Using historical sources, these classes discuss topics that musicians were formerly assumed to be familiar with, such as rhetoric, solmisation, mensural notation and dance.