At its height in the 1980s, the early music revival was regarded by many as virtually synonymous with the Academy of Ancient Music and Christopher Hogwood, who has died at the age of 73. Established in 1973 with instruments of the baroque period, under Hogwood's direction the AAM examined aspects of historical performance practice with scholarly rigour, paving the way for the achievements of other contemporaries such as Roger Norrington, John Eliot Gardiner and Trevor Pinnock. The AAM was at this time one of the most frequently recorded period ensembles, soon moving from the baroque era into the classical, to record the complete symphonies of Mozart and Beethoven, the complete Mozart piano concertos (with Robert Levin) and a wide range of other music.

Hogwood had been a continuo player for Neville Marriner's prolific Academy of St Martin in the Fields and a founder member, with David Munrow, of the Early Music Consort, but he finally managed to blaze his own trail with the foundation of the AAM, and by the 1980s had achieved superstar status in the classical sphere, dubbed "the Karajan of early music" on coming third in the 1983 Billboard chart, behind Plácido Domingo and Kiri Te Kanawa but ahead of any other conductor. Invited to conduct symphony orchestras in America, he was popular with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony, and invariably sold out at New York's Lincoln Centre.

After some of the earlier recordings, notably the Mozart symphonies, were criticised for tonal and intonational asperities, Hogwood began to achieve a cleaner, more professional sound, later admitting that he might have gone too far in the direction of sleekness and smoothness. He was not afraid, however, to risk charges of apostasy with headline-catching productions such as a 400-strong Messiah in the Hollywood Bowl during the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984 and a semi-staging of the oratorio in the Deutsche Oper Berlin for the Handel tercentenary the following year.

He was born in Nottingham, the son of Haley and Marion (nee Higgott). His father was a physicist, working for the Ministry of Supply at the time of Christopher's birth, and his mother was a trilingual secretary for the International Labour Organisation. They had met through singing in a choir. Christopher was a great organiser of family events, and at the age of 10 persuaded the rest of the family to sing the Hallelujah Chorus from a score of Messiah that he had got hold of. Educated at Nottingham high school and the Skinners' school, Tunbridge Wells, he read classics and music at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and studied harpsichord with Rafael Puyana, Mary Potts and, later, Gustav Leonhardt.

Though the hand-picked members of the Early Music Consort, in which he participated from 1965 to 1976, were all accomplished musicians, it was Munrow's exuberance and virtuosity on such instruments as the shawm, recorder and crumhorn that attracted most attention. Hogwood was inevitably eclipsed by Munrow's charisma, but the ensemble's soundtracks for the BBC series The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Elizabeth R nevertheless brought the group celebrity, and Hogwood made his own name known through writing and presenting a music magazine programme, The Young Idea, for BBC Radio 3 (1972–82).

It was with the foundation of the AAM, however, that he made his breakthrough. Hogwood's philosophy with the orchestra, and indeed in all his projects, was to attempt to understand and recreate the composer's intentions, in terms of both notation and performance. To this end he would return to the original sources, correct publishing errors and evaluate textual alterations in subsequent editions. Much of the repertoire the orchestra performed was given in editions prepared by Hogwood himself.

Though energetic and prolific in his scholarship, Hogwood sometimes displayed a pragmatic and wilful streak. Once questioned on the brisk tempi adopted in his Handel performances, he replied: "We got bored at the slow speeds." Such urgency did not necessarily translate into dynamic or engaging interpretations, and there is a sense in which the Academy (like that of St Martin's before it) was stripping away the barnacles of encrusted tradition while paving the way for the more engaging readings of later ensembles.

The AAM was also pioneering in the element of democracy in its music-making. Recognising that his players brought often deep levels of understanding and experience to the ensemble, Hogwood happily accepted the role of umpire. "I'm for democracy to the point of anarchy," he once declared. The notion of an autocratic maestro dictating performance practice to such professionals was a nonsense to him, and other ensembles (including many not specialising in early repertoire) began to adopt a similar policy.

According to Ernest Fleischmann, who invited Hogwood to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1981, "initially the musicians found him a little strange". He continued: "He didn't have the greatest conducting technique, but he's the most stimulating force in years." His habit of talking about the music during concerts took many by surprise, but audiences were won over.

The appointment of Hogwood in 1986 as artistic director of the venerable Handel and Haydn Society in Boston, Massachusetts, seemed at the time to be symbolic. The embrace of period instruments by the society, founded in 1815 to promote the performance of the music of the two composers, marked the ascendancy of the historicist movement. Other significant appointments included that of director of music of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra of Minnesota (1987-92; principal guest conductor 1992-98) and artistic adviser to the Australian Chamber Orchestra (1989-93). As his international performing schedule became ever more extensive, he began from 1996 to share conducting and directorial responsibilities at the AAM with Paul Goodwin and Andrew Manze. In 2006 he took the title of emeritus director when Richard Egarr succeeded him as music director.

In addition to the orchestral repertoire of the baroque and classical periods in which the AAM specialised, Hogwood also appeared in many of the world's leading opera houses, including Covent Garden, the Paris Opéra, the Deutsche Oper and the Sydney Opera House. His performance of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas at La Scala, Milan, in 2006 was well received. He also recorded many operas, including Dido and Aeneas, Handel's Agrippina, Alceste, Orlando and Rinaldo, Haydn's L'Anima del Filosofo, and Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail and La Clemenza di Tito.

Hogwood's accomplishments as a keyboard player were demonstrated in recordings of works by Arne, CPE Bach, Louis and François Couperin, William Byrd (My Ladye Nevells Booke and as a contributor to the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book), Frescobaldi, Giovanni Gabrieli, Gibbons, Handel and others. His discography also includes a wide range of chamber and vocal repertoire of the early periods, as well as neoclassical music by such composers as Martinů, Stravinsky, Britten, Copland, Tippett and Honegger. His love of the clavichord was evident in his "Secret" series: Secret Mozart, Secret Bach and Secret Handel.

Industrious, too, as an editor, Hogwood prepared countless volumes of pieces by composers from Dowland to Cherubini and Koželuch to Benda. He was chairman of the advisory board overseeing the new edition of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: The Complete Works to coincide with the composer's tercentenary in 2014. Of his numerous books, the most substantial were an authoritative biography of Handel (1984, revised 2007) enhanced by entertaining documentary material as well as the insights of a performer; Music at Court (1977); The Trio Sonata (1979); Haydn's Visits to England (1980); and Handel: Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks (2005), all written in lucid and erudite prose.

In the later decades of his career he worked increasingly in repertoire of the 19th and 20th centuries, preparing editions of, among others, Mendelssohn, Martinů, Elgar (including the Enigma Variations), Brahms and Stravinsky. Of particular note is the publication of the many alternative versions of the overtures and symphonies of Mendelssohn, revealing new insight into the composer's working methods.

Hogwood served on numerous editorial and advisory boards, and latterly held guest conductorships with the Kammerorchester Basel (2000-06), Orquesta Ciudad de Granada (2001–04), Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi (2003-06) and the Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra (from 2011).

He was also a visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music (1992–2008) and at King's College London (1992–96), honorary professor at Cambridge University (2002-08) and professor at Gresham College, London (from 2010), where he gave lectures that can be seen on YouTube. In 1989 he was appointed CBE.

The 1840s Cambridge house in which he lived was filled with books, watercolours and an impressive collection of musical instruments, predominantly clavichords, both original and period reproductions. He rarely watched television or films, he once said, preferring to immerse himself in the culture of previous eras. He was nevertheless an affable and engaging friend and colleague to those fortunate to know him.

He is survived by his sisters, Frances, Kate and Charlotte, and his brother, Jeremy.

• Christopher Jarvis Haley Hogwood, conductor, harpsichordist and musicologist, born 10 September 1941; died 24 September 2014

• Christopher Hogwood website