The great baroque hoax

de Sol Babitz

This book summarizes 35 years of research by Sol Babitz, founder of The Early Music Laboratory in Hollywood. In it he explains the differences in the instruments, techniques and interpretations of Baroque music, between the Baroque period and the present. Accompanying the book is a 12-inch LP recording of demonstrations, using the first restored violin from the early 18th Century, and a harpsichord constructed and played according to Bach's own fingering, which was preserved in historical records. Anyone majoring in Baroque music should avail themselves of this book and the recording, copies of which are included in Mr. Babitz' papers at UCLA. Mr. Babitz was first violinist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in the 1930s, and a player in motion picture studio orchestras in the 1940s and 1950s.