The Renaissance lute has claimed a handsome share of the popularity enjoyed by early music in the twentieth century, but until recently this was  at the cost of accurately recreating the building and playing techniques of old. Deciphering exactly howold lutes were built has been difficult since many surviving instruments were cannibalized during the  Baroque to make lutes with markedly different proportions and stringing, and the handful of unaltered lutes often need extensive restoration before any measurements can be made.  But like most early instruments, the lute was cultivated at first by performers trained on a related modern instrument, which compromised any urgency to understand the original playing techniques.  The first Pleyel and  Sperrhake harpsichords were designed with the tension and action of a modern piano, were played primarily by pianists, and were only graduallyreplaced by instruments built with more attention to the qualities of surviving baroque...