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The historically informed performance, period performance, or authentic performance movement is an approach by musicians and scholars to research and perform works of classical music in ways similar to how they may have been performed when they were originally written. The movement had its beginnings in the performance of Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque music, but subsequently came to incorporate the Classical and even Romantic eras as well. The two methods adopted by historically informed performance artists have been to use period instruments and to utilise treatises and other written evidence to gain insight into performance practice, i.e. stylistic and technical considerations based on how the works were originally played.