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Not many
composers have cast their
lot exclusively with
keyboard-music. Since the
separation between composer
and virtuoso was unknown
until the Romantic era, the
foremost players bequeathed
a wealth of literature for
their particular instrument.
One of the greatest and most
versatile among these who,
like John Bull, Chopin and
Scarlatti, were so engrossed
in their instrument as to
give voice through its
medium to all their
thoughts, is Jakob
Froberger.
Born and brought up in
Stuttgart, after a modest
initial appointment - to
Vienna, as organist, in 1627
- he obtains an imperial
stipend. Later in Rome,
under Frescobaldi’s
tutelage, he ripens to
musical maturity; from 1641
to 1645 he is active as
court-organist in Vienna.
Around 1650 he moves to
Brussels - the city is
closely connected at the
time with the Habsburgs -
and from here untertakes
various journeys, including
one to Paris where, having
meantime become celebrated,
the composer lives in the
same circles as
harpsichordists and
lutenists like Louis
Couperin and Blancrocher.
From 1653 to 1657 he is once
again in Vienna. Details of
his later life are scanty -
we know of one journey to
England. He spent his last
years in retirement at the
castle of the music-loving
Princess Sybilla of
Württemberg at Héricourt
near Montbéliard. He died
there in 1667 at the age of
fifty.
His art is the perfect
marriage of the French and
the Italian manner: the
impressions the youth
received from Frescobaldi
persisted.throughout his
life. Yet only in very few
instances does Froberger
imitate his master. At an
early stage, notably in the
toccatas, he achieves
individuality of form and
texture. The art of French
lute and harpsichord
composition influenced him
in similar degree; but even
in his "French" suites he
speaks in his own
unmistakable idiom.
His playing must have been
out of the ordinary:
"...That whoso hath not
learned the pieces from Mr.
Froberger himself, can in no
wise render the same with
tone discretion as he hath
performed them", "only
having learned them touch by
touch from his hand, it
being hard to apprehend all
from the book, could on
achieve correct performance"
(Princess Sybilla to
Constantijn Huygens, 1667).
Shortly before his death he
forbade the dissemination of
his works; in contrast to so
many of his contemporaries
he did little even in his
lifetime toward the
publication of his
compositions. Apart from the
posthumous publications
which did not appear until
1693 onwards in Mainz and
Amsterdam, we know his works
chiefly from the autograph
de luxe editions which he
dedicated - not entirely, we
may surmise, without
utilitarian motives - to the
emperors Ferdinand III and
Leopold I.
Froberger’s compositions are
never destined exclusively
for a particular
keyboard-instrument (organ,
harpsichord or clavichord).
The suites are in fact best
performed on the
harpsichord. There were no
lovers of the clavichord in
France; but on the organ the
"style luthé" completely
loses its effect. Likewise
the toccatas, excluding
those for the Elevation of
the Host, on the pattern set
by Frescobaldi who in his
first editions expressly
assigned his to the
harpsichord, are best played
on this instrument.
Ricercare, canzone,
fantasias and capriccio can
however be played equally
well on a large or small
organ, as well on other
keyboard-instruments.
During his sojourn in Paris
Froberger became acquainted
with the first two-manual
harpsichords - no longer,
that is, the Flemish
transposing instruments. An
instrument of this type
served for this recording, a
harpsichord by Johann
Ruckers built in Antwerp in
1640 originally as a
two-pitch (8-foot and
4-foot) transposing
harpsichord, but converted
around 1690 into a proper
two-manual instrument of
three pitches (8-foot,
8-foot, 4-foot) with a
compass ranging from low B
(short octave low G) to the
third C above middle. The
new French harpsichords of
1650 were of precisely this
design. The superb
instrument is in Ahaus
castle in Westphalia and
belongs to Count
Landsberg-Velen, whose
ancestors acquired it in
Antwerp in 1640.
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