From the Beeb: Putting a ear to the past.

When a Scottish academic discovered a piece of 17th Century harpsichord music in a little known archive, he was keen to hear it played on the instrument for which it was written.

But bringing the music back to life proved a hard task for Dr Kenny McAlpine, a lecturer in computer arts at the University of Abertay in Dundee.

Antique musical instruments are incredibly fragile – some do not hold their tuning for long enough to play a piece, others are too delicate to play at all.

So Dr McAlpine decided to go for a 21st century solution – and make a digital reconstruction of an antique harpsichord. [continue]