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Wood smoke in the air, leaves falling, wool hats – it is getting closer to NCMF’s Winter Baroque. Tickets go on sale this Friday for the concert on Sunday, 22 December, 3:00 at St. Paul’s.

Look at the image above. What do you see: wigs, glorious wigs. But why? It turns out that great hair was seen as a status symbol in 17^th Century Europe just as syphilis was ravaging the continent. And what is a major symptom of syphilis? Your hair falling out.

Wigs were commonly used to cover up hair loss, but their use did not become widespread until two Kings started to lose their hair, Louis XIV of France experienced hair loss at the early age of 17, and he hired 48 wigmakers to help combat his thinning locks. His English cousin, King Charles II, began wearing wigs a few years later, when his hair began to prematurely grey – both conditions being syphilitic signals. A fashion was born, as courtiers started wearing wigs, and the trend trickled down to the merchant class.

As wigs became more popular, they became a status symbol for people to flaunt their wealth. The term “bigwig” stems from this era, when British nobility would spend upwards of 800 shillings on wigs. In 1700, when calculate for inflation, this comes out to around $10,000 per wig in today’s currency.

Almost as quickly as wigs rose in popularity, they swiftly fell, weighted down by their cost and philosophy. The Age of Enlightenment brought a new mentality, where educated men became more concerned with the plight of the common man. As a bourgeoise class arose, extravagant expenditure on fashion and hair was perceived as ignorant. Wigs, particularly in Revolutionary France, were considered a sign of aristocracy – the newly wealthy bourgeoise did not want to be associated with nobility, particularly given that those same nobles were quite frequently losing their wigged heads to the guillotine.

For Winter Baroque this year I’m sticking to familiar classics and beloved chestnuts - musical “comfort food.” I’ll save the thorny, angular stuff for the summer. We have Bach’s double violin concerto and a solo cello suite, Vivaldi’s “La Folia” and his triple concerto for two violins and cello “L’Estro Armonico,” a concerto grosso by Handel, an novelty work by Marin Marais, and a little surprise at the end (more on that in a future post).

Firecracker Nurit Pacht returns with her high-octane charisma alongside Cynthia Roberts’ earnest and nuanced music-making. (Cynthia, head of baroque violin at Juilliard, was Nurit’s teacher, which is kind of cool.) Eliana is back and Italian harpsichord player Nicola Canzano, hand-picked by Cynthia, fills out the continuo section. And then, Alessandra, fresh from Juilliard pre-college and now at conservatory in Vienna studying viola, will be joining her sister on stage.

The concert is a little over an hour with no intermission. A big shout out to Helen Cogan for the photo of Plum Island at dawn on the poster.

David Yang, Artistic Director

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