When you’re at a concert, classical or otherwise, you might feel that an encore is a given — even if the music was OK at best. When the musician or conductor leaves the podium, you’ll start to bang your palms together, hoot and holler a little and be a tad surprised if they don’t come back out for a musical parting gift. So, how did this tradition begin?

Turns out we need to look back to the Baroque days, where we can find some evidence of the encore existing as early as February, 1712. The big difference though, was that this particular mention of an encore wasn’t one with admiration. Instead, it was used in a satirical comment in The Spectator, a British paper unrelated to the modern magazine of the same name. Full story.

James Bennett, II (WQXR) / November 1, 2017

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