News

Some of you may have noticed that we we have two Winter Baroque concerts this year, one in Andover (Saturday), and another in Newburyport (Sunday). This is new for us but it is fun to have a chance to do the program twice. The concert itself is just an hour and a quarter with no intermission and designed so that, on Sunday, you can get back in time for Christmas dinner.

The concert starts with a work by Johann Friedrich Fasch, infamous amongst musicologists as the perpetrator of “The Great Telemann Forgery.” (Musicologists are very excitable.)

Apparently, as a young student in the prestigious St. Thomas choir in Leipzig, Fasch pulled off an impressive hoax. Wanting to have his music performed by the choir but lacking in social standing, Fasch composed an entire overture in the style of hip composer and all the rage of the day, Georg Philip Telemann, promptly submitting it as a little-known work he had “discovered.”

After reading through the work, his fellow students were ecstatic, which was Fasch’s opportunity to come clean. His colleagues took the subterfuge in stride, appointing Fasch to write regular works for the choir which directly led to a long and fruitful career.

I guess Telemann saw imitation as the sincerest form of flattery since these two giants of German High Baroque became close and fast friends. Fasch went on to experiment with baroque forms, pushing the limits of what could be done in ways that presaged the early classical style of Haydn and Mozart.

Please remember that ALL tickets are pay-what-you-can for these concerts. No one should miss a concert if they want to go.

‍David Yang, Artistic Director