DICTIONARY OF MUSIC - El Atril

14 FASCH FASCH
and [liano. She married in 1821, and made
several professional tours in France with her
husband, both performing in public witli great
success. ]\Iadame Farrenc was not only a clever
woman, but an able and conscientious teacher,
as is shown by tlie many excellent female pupils
she trained during the tiiirty years she was professor
of the piano at the Conservatoire (Nov.
1842-Jan. 1873). Besides some remarkable
etudes, sonatas, and pieces for the pianoforte,
she composed sonatas for piano and violin or violon-
cello, trios, two quintets, a sestet, and a nonet, for
which works slie obtained iu 1869 the prize of
the Academie des Beaux Arts for chamber-music.
She also wrote two symphonies and tliree overtures
for full orchestra, and several of lier more
important compositions were performed at the
Conservatoire concerts. More than by all these,
however, her name will be perpietuated by the
Tr^or des Fia/iistes, a real anthology of music,
containing ehefs-d'ceuvre of all the classical
masters of the harpsichord and pianoforte from
the 16tli century down to Weber and Chopin, as
well as more modern works of the highest value.
[Her Tmiti des abbriviations was published in
1897. See also Tr6sor des Pianistes.] g. c.
FASCH, JoHANN Friedrich, born at Buttelstedt
(Weimar), April 15, 1688, was a cliorister
at Weissenfels in 1699, a scholar of the Thomasschule
in Leipzig from 1701 to 1707, where he
studied law as well as music, the latter under
Kuhnau. He founded a 'Collegium musicum,'
which seems to have been the ancestor of the
' Grosses Concert ' and
so of tire Gewandhaus
concerts ; he wrote overtures for the society in
the style of Telemann, and composed three
operas for the Naumburg fair and elsewhere.
In 1714, after leading a wandering life for some
years, he was an official secretary at Gera, and
in 1719 went to Zeitz as organist and ' Eath-
schreiber,' where he remained for two years.
In 1721 he took service with Count Jlorzini at
Lucavei in Bohemia, and in 1722 was apipointed
court capellmeister at Zerbst, where he died, Dec.
5, 1768. He was invited to compete for the
post of cantor at tlie Thomasschule against Bach,
but apparently refused to do so. (Spitta,
J. S. B(u:h (Engl, transh), ii. 181.) Bach held
Fasch's music in high esteem, and copied out
five orchestral suites of his. In the collection
of music left by Philipp Emanuel Bach was a
whole set of church cantatas by Fasch. Several
masses, a requiem, eleven church cantatas and
motets, one Passion-setting, various overtures,
trios, sonatas, etc., are pjreserved in JIS. at
Leipzig, Dresden, Berlin, and Brussels (see
QuelUn-Lexikon, from which, with Riemann's
Lexilc(m,t\n above particularsare taken). Fasch's
son,
Carl Friedrich Christiax Fasch, founder
of the 'Singakademie' at Berlin, was born Nov.
18, 1736, at Zerbst. As a child he was delicate,
and much indulged. He made rapid progress on
the violin and clavier, and in the rudiments of
harmony. After a short stay at Coethen, where
he made his first attempts at composition in
church music, he was sent to Strelitz. Here he
continued his studies under Hertel, inall branches
of music, but especially in accompaniment, at
that time a difhcult art, as the accompanist had
only the figured bass to guide him. In 17.'.1
Linicke, the court clavierist, haidng declined to
accompany Franz Benda, Fasch offered to supply
his place at the harpsichord, and Benda's praises
incited him to still greater efforts. After his
return to Zerbst he was sent to complete his
education at Klosterbergen near Magdeburg.
Benda had not forgotten their meeting, and in
1756, when just twenty, Fasch was appointed
on his recommendation accomjjanist to Frederick
the Great. His coadjutor was no less a person
than Emanuel Bach ; they took it in turns to
accompany the King's flute-concertos, and as soon
as Fasch had become accustomed to the royal
amateur's impetuous style of execution, his
accompaniments gave every satisfaction. The
Seven Years' War put an end to Frederick's fluteplaying,
and as Fasch received his salary (300
thalers) in paper, worth only a fifth part of
its nominal value,— a misfortune in which he
anticipated Beethoven— he was compelled to
maintain himself by giving lessons. For his
lessons in composition he made a collection of
several thousand examples. About the same
time he wrote several most ingenious canons,
particularly one for twenty-five voices containing
five canons put together, one being in seven parts,
one in six, and three in four parts. After the
battle of Torgau the King granted him an
addition of 100 thalers to his salary, but the
increase covered the direction of the opera, which
was put into his hands from 1774 to 1776. After
the war of the Bavarian succession Frederick gave
up his practice, and Fasch was free to follow his
natural inclination for church music. In 1783,
incited by a 16-part Mass of BenevoU's, which
Reichardt had brought from Italy, he wrote one
for the same number of voices, which, however,
proved too diflftcult for the court-singers. He
retained his post after Frederick's death, but
occupied himself chiefly with composition and
teaching. In the summer of 1790, as he himself
tells us, he began choral-meetings in the summer-
house of Geheimrath Milow, which resulted in
the ' Singakademie, ' an institution which under
his pupil and successor Zelter became very
popular, and exercised an important influence on
musical taste in Berlin for many years. Before
his death Fasch was twice visited by Beethoven,
who spent some time in Berlin in the summer of
1796. On the first occasion, June 21, he heard
a chorale, the three first numbers of Fasch's
mass, and several movements from his 119th
Psalm, and he himself extemporised on one of
the subjects of the latter. On the 28th he reappeared
and again extemporised, to the delight