Johann Jakob Froberger (1616–1667)
Organist to the imperial court in Vienna, a great traveller and a pupil of Frescobaldi, Froberger helped establish the keyboard suite and wrote tombeaux and laments of striking expressiveness.
Johann Jakob Froberger was born in Stuttgart in 1616, the son of a court musician. He entered the emperor’s service in Vienna as an organist and was allowed to go to Rome to study with Girolamo Frescobaldi, the greatest Italian keyboard player of the day.
A travelling musician, he went to Paris, where he met French harpsichordists and lutenists, and to London. He absorbed Italian, French and German styles and fused them into a very personal idiom. He spent his last years at Héricourt, near Montbéliard, under the protection of Duchess Sibylla of Württemberg, and died there in 1667.
His dance suites (allemande, courante, sarabande, often with a gigue) helped establish the model later used by German composers up to Bach. His toccatas and fantasias carry on Frescobaldi’s art.
He is also famous for his programmatic pieces: the Tombeau fait à Paris sur la mort de Monsieur Blancrocher, the Lamentation on the death of Emperor Ferdinand III and the Méditation faite sur ma mort future. These pages, to be played in free time “avec discrétion”, are of a rare intensity for their period.
For pianists, Froberger opens the door to Baroque rhythmic freedom: learning to play without a metronome, letting the harmony breathe.
Piano sheet music (4)
- Suite VII in E minor — movement 3 · level 4
- Suite VII in E minor — movement 2 · level 5
- Suite VII in E minor — movement 1 · level 5
- Suite VII in E minor — movement 4 · level 3