Editing Historically informed performance (section)

==Layout==
Standard practice concerning the layout of a group of performers, for example in a choir or an orchestra, has changed over time. Determining a historically appropriate layout of singers and instruments on a performance stage may be informed by historical research. In addition to documentary evidence, musicologists may also turn to [[Iconography|iconographic evidence]] — contemporary paintings and drawings of performing musicians — as a [[primary source]] for historic information. Pictorial sources may reveal various practices such as the size of an ensemble; the position of various types of instruments; their position in relation to a choir or keyboard instrument; the position or absence of a conductor; whether the performers are seated or standing; and the performance space (such as a concert hall, palace chamber, domestic house, church, or outdoors etc.).{{sfn|Lawson|Stowell|1999|p=17-18}} The German theorist [[Johann Mattheson]], in a 1739 treatise, states that the singers should stand in front of the instrumentalists.<ref>Mattheson 1739, {{Page needed|date=December 2010}}.</ref>

Three main layouts are documented:{{citation needed|date=March 2018}}
* Circle (Renaissance)
* Choir in the front of the instruments (17th–19th century)
* Singers and instruments next to each other on the choir loft.

===Gallery===
<gallery class="center">
Image:Orlando de Lassus2.jpg|Renaissance composer Orlando de Lassus directing a chamber ensemble
Image:Concert spirituel Wien 1837.jpg|An 1837 sketch of the layout of a choir and orchestra
Image:Reinicke 1890.jpg|A drawing of an 1890 concert in Munich, Germany
Image:Diakonie-kantorei.jpg|A choir with instrumentalists, in historic layout
</gallery>