Dr Jeremy Coleman, Lecturer in the Department of Music Studies and Area Director of Research in the School of Performing Arts, is presenting a paper at a one-day workshop hosted by Christ's College, University of Cambridge, UK, on Wednesday 26 March 2025. The workshop, on the theme 'Composer-Critics and Their Music: Reflections on Minds of the Nineteenth Century', is organised by Prof. David Trippett and Dr Alexander Wilfing, and funded by Christ鈥檚 College Cambridge and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). More information about the event may be found .
Dr Coleman's paper is titled 'Fran莽ois-Joseph F茅tis鈥檚 Compositional "Fakes" as Creative Historiography' and forms part of an ongoing monograph study on the 'invention' of a modern idea of music history and musical heritage c.1770 to 1848. The paper focuses on the Belgian professor, critic and composer F茅tis's attempts to present the history of music to audiences in concert performance through a series of so-called 'historical concerts', a project that led him to compose various musical pieces that he deceptively passed off as the authentic work of composers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Additionally, Dr Coleman's transcription of one such F茅tis 'fake' - an aria that he attributed to Francesco Cavalli (1602-76) - will be performed in a special concert in the evening of 26 March following the workshop.
