Topic: Johann Jakob Froberger

[Mandryka]

Dear Music Lovers,

actually I'm recording the complete works for harpsichord and organ of Johann Jakob Froberger for the dutch label Brilliant Classics (production by OnClassical). For this project I have chosen to use two important italian historical organs, where I'm proud to be titular organist: the organ by Domenico Di Lorenzo da Lucca (1509-1521) in the church of Santissima Annunziata and the instrument by Onofrio Zeffirini da Cortona (1558) in the church of Badia Fiorentina, both in the historical centre of Florence (IT).
The first instrument by Domenico Di Lorenzo needs urgently a great work of repair to be good for being recorded, estimated in 3000 euros. This is why I'm asking you, with this crowdfunding, to help us to repair this ancient organ, giving us the chance to let you hear its beautiful and unique sound in a valuable Brilliant Classics cd-box.
I want to thank everybody who will help us to finish this recording project within this year! I offer my cds to our donors.
I wish you all the best,

Simone Stella

[Que]

Yes, the information about the use of historical organs instead if the generic reconstructions he sometimes uses was good news indeed.
And Italian organs should be appropriate for Froberger, Van Asperen did the same.
One more thing that comes to mind is that the organs, unless their sound has been "modernised" in subsequent times, are from the Renaissance.
This seems to indicate an approach that Stella will emphasise the "Frescobaldi" connection for the organ works, as Van Asperen did.

Q

[Que]

When it rains, it pours - more new Froberger:

Q

[Mandryka]

Volume 3 of Richard Egarr's Froberger series is one of the baroque keyboard recording which means the most to me, and which has to a certain extent formed my own musical taste.

The selection of music in the first half is almost all quite severe, in that the interest comes primarily not from melody, rhythm or variation, but from counterpoint. It is almost all quite serious too: there are moments of jubilation and even light heartedness, but they are rare.  What makes Egarr so special here is that he finds in these toccatas, capricci and ricercari something both touching and tender.

The second half is given over to suites, but again the tone is serious and spiritual.

On harpsichord Egarr is a great great master: he manages to be simultaneously calm and passionate, yet another example of paradox which now seems to me to be at the heart of all early music, maybe all music. Maybe all art. The emotions he evokes in the suites are bizarre: there is something almost nightmarish about what he makes of suite xviii, for example. And just wait till you hear what he makes of Toccatas XV and XVII! And yet his way of playing is not without a certain grandeur either: another quasi-paradox there - both grand and frightening.

Basically we have here a recording which touches the soul, and which shows both composer and performer as poets of the highest order.

There's a good balance of organ and harpsichord music in the first half. Sound is absolutely fine.

[Mandryka]

   

In 1654, towards the end of his life, Froberger published a set of six suites numbered 7 through 12.  The performance here by Egarr is marked by a sense of emotional restraint. This is a marked contrast to Asperen, whose performances are full of emotion. Egarr makes me think of Leonhardt, who recorded two of the suites in question.

What is the wisdom of age? Is it a move to abstraction and asceticism, imperturbability, a move away from emotional turbulence?  Or is it a sense of profound melancholy and regret?

Egarr and Leonhardt answer the first way. Asperen the second. Glen Wilson has recorded all these suites recently, I wonder what his answer will be.

[Mandryka]

This recording by Tilney is devoted to Italianate music, and may be the most pure and abstracted Froberger performance I know. What I mean is that it is the music is abstracted from emotion, from human psychology. We're in a sound-world which is not really about feeling. The question is whether it benefits from this kind of treatment, or whether the detachment kills it.

I'm not sure what I think, and I find my response to Tilney's playing here has done a U turn over time. At first I thought the music making was unbearably dry and uncommunicative. But somehow, and I can't explain how, I now find myself very stimulated by what Tilney does.

It's as if I have had to learn how to appreciate  this way of making music, maybe because it is so different from galant or romantic style. And I have had to discipline myself to take it on its own terms, to avoid comparisons.

[Mandryka]

Interesting thesis on keyboard temperaments in Froberger

http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/12055/21/PhD%20Masumi%20Yamamoto.pdf

[(: premont :)]

Interesting thesis on keyboard temperaments in Froberger

http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/12055/21/PhD%20Masumi%20Yamamoto.pdf

Thanks for this fine link, Mandryka.

[Mandryka]

Thanks for this fine link, Mandryka.

It's interesting to compare Leonhardt and Verlet in the Lamentation sur ce que j'ai été volé, given what he says about functional harmony and tuning for the piece.

What he says about Egarr and the wobbly ricercar is extraordinary.

[milk]

As with many of Lars Ulrik Mortensen's recordings the instrument is quite resonant. He plays in a way which is texturally busy - not much space between notes because of the ornamentation, but the phrasing is clear and sharp - I can't really think of the word in English but in French you'd say the phrasing is tranchant - "decisive" is possibly the right word -  so there's no problem with respiration. The recording is taken from an audience's perspective - it's good and natural, what you might hear if you were in a  recital. But it's not what people expect from harpsichord recordings, which are often recorded as if the microphone is actually in the instrument.

The performances are very distinctive because they are passionate - not miserable melancholy, but hot hot hot! Like he's boiling over with emotions, Latin emotions. Even in a sweet little thing like the partita on Die  Mayerin he's intense, ardent.

The combination of the unusual sound, the busy textures and the fervour have made this a really challenging recording for me to get into (I'm a Brit so my upper lip is stiff.) But now I've lightened up and I love it.

I was led to this by another forum - the suggestion that in some Bach, the influence of Froberger is felt. This is not a disappointing recording. I would love to see something like this live. It really takes one away. Mortensen is carried away and brings the listener along. 

[Ubiquitous]

the suggestion that in some Bach, the influence of Froberger is felt.

Below is an excerpt from a 19th century book written by Spitta. In addition, Bach varied the form of the suite in his solo violin partitas and cello suites. The form of the suite for instrumental music was established by Froberger.It originally contained Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, and Gigue. Bach followed the tradition and varied the form in each his sets.
 
A prelude and fugue in E flat major must also be mentioned here. Mention has frequently been made of J. Jakob Froberger, of Halle, who, in the middle of the seventeenth century, was one of the most prominent masters of the clavier and organ, in Germany. Although a native of Central Germany, he had devoted himself chiefly to the southern type of organ-music, just then raised to its zenith by Frescobaldi in Rome. But his performances were known and valued throughout Germany, least of all, indeed, in his own native province since his education had left him unfamiliar with the chorale form but much more in the north. It has been already noticed that his toccatas contributed to the formation of the North German fugue-form, consisting of several sections. With regard to free organ composition Froberger stands about half-way between the northern and southern masters. We are told that in the book belonging to Bach's elder brother, which he secretly transcribed for himself in Ohrdruf, there were pieces by Froberger, so that he had made this master's acquaintance when quite a boy. The northern masters, of whom he learnt in later life, had, it is true, long since overtaken Froberger, but they still referred to him, and did not hinder the delight which Bach, determined by his earliest impressions, took in his works. That this was actually the case, is shown by Adlung, a personal friend of Bach, who says : " Froberger was held at that time in high honour by the late Bach, of Leipzig, although he was somewhat antiquated." But in the nature of the case, it cannot be thought that Froberger had any important or direct influence on Bach through his own works ; the principal elements of Froberger's genius were probably transmitted to him through the northern masters, with whom he stood in closer connection than with Froberger.

In fact the only work where beside or beneath Buxtehude's manner that of Froberger appears at all, is this same prelude and fugue. It was a favourite device with this master to display at the beginning and end of his toccatas a kind of passage-writing accompanied with chords now lying above and now underneath ; these passages consist of notes of different values irregularly mixed, and are easily recognisable by this restless character. From such a germ grew the pre- lude of Buxtehude, who, however, added the elements of proportion, order, and development; his "finales" or perorations, ingenious as they are, are allied to the finale passages of Froberger's toccatas. Bach's composition reminds us strongly of Froberger, not only in the form of the running passages (e.g., the phrase of zig-zag descending semiquavers) and the massive chords, but also in the repetition of the fugue in a form adorned with trivial figures which have no inner connection with it, expanded to a length which in later times the composer never permitted. On the other hand, the passages have a quieter flow and more connection by means of imitation, as in the works of Buxtehude. Both influences seem to me less conspicuous in the fugue ; the theme has not sufficient motion for the Liibeck master, and the style of contrapuntal invention is not his, while, on the other hand, the harmony is too complicated for Froberger.

[milk]

Below is an excerpt from a 19th century book written by Spitta. In addition, Bach varied the form of the suite in his solo violin partitas and cello suites. The form of the suite for instrumental music was established by Froberger.It originally contained Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, and Gigue. Bach followed the tradition and varied the form in each his sets.
 
A prelude and fugue in E flat major must also be mentioned here. Mention has frequently been made of J. Jakob Froberger, of Halle, who, in the middle of the seventeenth century, was one of the most prominent masters of the clavier and organ, in Germany. Although a native of Central Germany, he had devoted himself chiefly to the southern type of organ-music, just then raised to its zenith by Frescobaldi in Rome. But his performances were known and valued throughout Germany, least of all, indeed, in his own native province since his education had left him unfamiliar with the chorale form but much more in the north. It has been already noticed that his toccatas contributed to the formation of the North German fugue-form, consisting of several sections. With regard to free organ composition Froberger stands about half-way between the northern and southern masters. We are told that in the book belonging to Bach's elder brother, which he secretly transcribed for himself in Ohrdruf, there were pieces by Froberger, so that he had made this master's acquaintance when quite a boy. The northern masters, of whom he learnt in later life, had, it is true, long since overtaken Froberger, but they still referred to him, and did not hinder the delight which Bach, determined by his earliest impressions, took in his works. That this was actually the case, is shown by Adlung, a personal friend of Bach, who says : " Froberger was held at that time in high honour by the late Bach, of Leipzig, although he was somewhat antiquated." But in the nature of the case, it cannot be thought that Froberger had any important or direct influence on Bach through his own works ; the principal elements of Froberger's genius were probably transmitted to him through the northern masters, with whom he stood in closer connection than with Froberger.

In fact the only work where beside or beneath Buxtehude's manner that of Froberger appears at all, is this same prelude and fugue. It was a favourite device with this master to display at the beginning and end of his toccatas a kind of passage-writing accompanied with chords now lying above and now underneath ; these passages consist of notes of different values irregularly mixed, and are easily recognisable by this restless character. From such a germ grew the pre- lude of Buxtehude, who, however, added the elements of proportion, order, and development; his "finales" or perorations, ingenious as they are, are allied to the finale passages of Froberger's toccatas. Bach's composition reminds us strongly of Froberger, not only in the form of the running passages (e.g., the phrase of zig-zag descending semiquavers) and the massive chords, but also in the repetition of the fugue in a form adorned with trivial figures which have no inner connection with it, expanded to a length which in later times the composer never permitted. On the other hand, the passages have a quieter flow and more connection by means of imitation, as in the works of Buxtehude. Both influences seem to me less conspicuous in the fugue ; the theme has not sufficient motion for the Liibeck master, and the style of contrapuntal invention is not his, while, on the other hand, the harmony is too complicated for Froberger.

I'm straining to get all the musicology here but it's interesting. Froberger is a strange duck. Sometimes he seems more well-placed in the atmospherics of French music. Yet, his way of organizing gets through in Bach. Well, he's not fancy-free at all like the French. There's a lot of emotional control (to the breaking point?). It's easy to forget the idea of form because Froberger has so much less musical breadth and is so much moodier than Bach.

[Mandryka]

I'm straining to get all the musicology here but it's interesting. Froberger is a strange duck. Sometimes he seems more well-placed in the atmospherics of French music. Yet, his way of organizing gets through in Bach. Well, he's not fancy-free at all like the French. There's a lot of emotional control (to the breaking point?). It's easy to forget the idea of form because Froberger has so much less musical breadth and is so much moodier than Bach.

You should listen to the Froberger suites that Glen Wilson released last year partly because they're arranged chronologically. So you can hear the way his ideas about music change. There's a lot more to Froberger than the death music he wrote at the end of his life.

[Mandryka]

A new Froberger recording by Johannes Maria Bogner, who uses a clavichord. The timbres of the instrument are so rich that Bogner can use them  as means of expression. Similarly for the dynamic variation. The music sounds good played like this.

I prefer it to Tuma's second - I'll cherish it along with Tuma's first and Dart's.

[milk]

A new Froberger recording by Johannes Maria Bogner, who uses a clavichord. The timbres of the instrument are so rich that Bogner can use them  as means of expression. Similarly for the dynamic variation. The music sounds good played like this.

I prefer it to Tuma's second - I'll cherish it along with Tuma's first and Dart's.

Great! Thanks. I just purchased this.

[Mandryka]

Listening again to Johannes Maria Bogner on a nice copy of a Christofori clavichord, a bit more critically. One new thing that these interpretations bring is Froberger quasi- Empfindsamkeit - he doesn't always play like that, the Partita on Mayerin and some of the capriccios at the end are relatively phlegmatic I think. The instrument and the unusual approach make it a  valuable contribution IMO.

I've always assumed that Johannes Maria Bogner is a man - if that's correct, what's the cover of the CD about?

[Jo498]

Bogner is a bald bespectacled male, you can find pictures in the web and even a facebook presence. I don't know what the cover is about. (A woman with a hunting hat searching for Froberger's traces?)

[Mandryka]

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/dFb1fECwk2o" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/dFb1fECwk2o</a>

Froberger meditation on a chromatic harpsichord.

[milk]

This looks like an interesting recording. I can't believe no one has recorded Froberger on the piano. I know the music is difficult to translate on piano...still, everything else has been tried. Are Couperin and Rameau really that much easier for the big furniture? You'd think someone would have given it a go.

[Mandryka]

Sokolov played Froberger on the piano, I think what he did sounds good, after all we all know that a piano is just a loud clavichord. A music student, piano,  once said to me that he started to play Froberger and he demonstrated it to the early music people in his university, but they wrinkled their noses and said it's as silly as playing Couperin on a bagpipe.

Pianophiles tend to like simple hummable melodies and foot tapping rhythms, and in my experience they can't get their little heads round Froberger's music.

Claudio Columbo has released a commercial recording of Froberger using some sort of piano, I don't think it's very interesting.