This chapter asks how public music theory might begin a productive conversation with performers and
listeners about compositional forgery. An initial exploration of a 1966 thought experiment proposed by
Glenn Gould in High Fidelity magazine leads to a musical reassessment of themes drawn from the
existing philosophical literature on art forgery. Stylistic and historical trends specific to compositional
forgery are established through a survey of three forged musical compositions which have become entrenched in the public imagination as archetypes of the musical Baroque despite their twentieth-
century compositional origins: “Pugnani’s” Praeludium and Allegro (by Fritz Kreisler), “Albinoni’s” Adagio in G Minor (by Remo Giazotto), and “Caccini’s” Ave Maria (by Vladimir Vavilov). Finally, an overview of recent art exhibitions that have contextualized forged paintings in innovative ways leads to a series of practical suggestions for scholars and musicians interested in acknowledging the existence of compositional forgeries, performing them as such, and discussing them openly with the public.
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Frederick Reece, “Baroque Forgeries and the Public Imagination.”
Frederick Reece, “Baroque Forgeries and the Public Imagination,” in The Oxford Handbook of Public Music Theory, ed. J. Daniel Jenkins (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022).
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