This recording is centered around the performance style found in mechanical musical instruments (generally barrel organs and organ clocks) produced in 18th-century England. It features a combination of pieces which appear in treatises or other publications offering information from composers about performance style, and pieces whose style has been preserved within the pins, barrels and pipes of mechanized musical instruments made over 200 years ago. As historical performers much of our understanding of style is based on the study of treatises on performance, or other written sources from earlier eras. These are open to much interpretation, often appear to disagree with each other, and frequently the modern reader must decipher what they may have omitted because it seemed too obvious to mention for readers at the time. This recording is the culmination of 10 years of research by Dr Emily Baines. © First Hand Records