Topic: Johann Jakob Froberger

[milk]

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.

I wish I could get a hold of the Sokolov. I take your explanation. I mean, Couperin and Rameau made super hummable music. Still...aren't pianists looking for new ground (ok, where I live, in Japan, I've seen NO evidence for this statement)? Here is something ripe for a genius album to come along and rock the world! After all, there's lots to pick and choose from. One would think this would be in the pike. Who wants another Chopin?!?   

[Mandryka]

I wish I could get a hold of the Sokolov. I take your explanation. I mean, Couperin and Rameau made super hummable music. Still...aren't pianists looking for new ground (ok, where I live, in Japan, I've seen NO evidence for this statement)? Here is something ripe for a genius album to come along and rock the world! After all, there's lots to pick and choose from. One would think this would be in the pike. Who wants another Chopin?!?

I'll send you the Sokolov later today or tomorrow.

[milk]

I'll send you the Sokolov later today or tomorrow.

yay!!!!!!!! Thanks!

[milk]

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.

Would you say that Egarr is also less "personal," "flatter," more "direct" or "restrained" than than others on the market? I seem to have a lot of Froberger in my collection now. Egarr choses the driest sound too. Something attracts me lately to this style. I think with something like Bach I feel a more universal connection. With Froberger or Frescobaldi, I feel I am really traveling to another world with totally different references. And with Egarr, I feel it's even more mysterious in a way.

[Mandryka]

Would you say that Egarr is also less "personal," "flatter," more "direct" or "restrained" than than others on the market? I seem to have a lot of Froberger in my collection now. Egarr choses the driest sound too. Something attracts me lately to this style. I think with something like Bach I feel a more universal connection. With Froberger or Frescobaldi, I feel I am really traveling to another world with totally different references. And with Egarr, I feel it's even more mysterious in a way.

Try Vartolo and Tilney.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

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.

Andrew Rangell plays a couple of Froberger pieces on piano on his Bridge to Bach album. I do wish more pianists would explore this early baroque keyboard material. If you can play Bach on piano, why not this other stuff?

[Mandryka]

Andrew Rangell plays a couple of Froberger pieces on piano on his Bridge to Bach album.

If you like what he does there you'll like Francesco Tristano Schlime's Frescobaldi recording, which has a similar feeling of a stoned jazz pianist in a club in the early hours of the morning. I've grown to like Schlime a lot, I'm sure he could make something of Froberger.

Pierre Chalmeau has a Louis Couperin piano recording. I've only heard it once, so won't comment.

[milk]

An odd recording: I just bought one track: "Meditation sur ma mort future NB Memento mori Froberger" played by Dylan Sauerwald on what sounds like lautenwerk: not my favorite instrument but it's not bad here.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

If you like what he does there you'll like Francesco Tristano Schlime's Frescobaldi recording, which has a similar feeling of a stoned jazz pianist in a club in the early hours of the morning.

Thanks for the rec - it's available on Amazon for a mere $74.98.

A "stoned jazz" approach seems to fit these early keyboard composers. There's a sense of unsettled forms, as if they're still working out how the music is supposed to go.

[milk]

Thanks for the rec - it's available on Amazon for a mere $74.98.

A "stoned jazz" approach seems to fit these early keyboard composers. There's a sense of unsettled forms, as if they're still working out how the music is supposed to go.

I saw that too. Too bad! As I've been saying, someone should come along again with recording of these works on piano. It's not well chartered waters for pianists. Someone might do L. Couperin, Froberger and Frescobaldi. Maybe Sweelinck too. On one recording. But maybe the public is not clamoring for it. 

[Mandryka]

I saw that too. Too bad! As I've been saying, someone should come along again with recording of these works on piano. It's not well chartered waters for pianists. Someone might do L. Couperin, Froberger and Frescobaldi. Maybe Sweelinck too. On one recording. But maybe the public is not clamoring for it.

There's Daniel Ben Pienaar's Gibbons, some pianist recorded some Bull, and Schlime recorded some Buxtehude.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

There's Daniel Ben Pienaar's Gibbons, some pianist recorded some Bull, and Schlime recorded some Buxtehude.

That's Alan Feinberg's Basically Bull.

Also the aforementioned Rangell Bridge to Bach. And who can forget the granddaddy of them all: Gould's Consort of Musicke!

The fact that these "albums" have titles highlights their novelty character.

[milk]

I'm most attracted to Egarr for Froberger these days. I got the Vartolo and I think I will enjoy it in the future. Clearly, he works his own kind of magic on the music. Maybe it's just a phase, but I like this kind of "flat," subdued, almost dry style of Egarr. I can't quite put my finger on why I like it so much. When I bought volumes one and two of Egarr's Froberger a few years back, it did nothing for me. Now I find myself really enjoying Egarr more than anyone else. It's pure as the afternoon sun. 

[Mandryka]

The reason I keep beating a drum for Vartolo's late Froberger is that it is incredibly dark, like a cold hard and hopeless glimpse into the void. The first time I heard it I could not believe my ears, and to some extent the shock of it has never worn off, because of the complete absence of comfort, consolation.

But more importantly I'm forgetting someone with a dry style you may like in Froberger - Kenneth Gilbert.

Egarr's Froberger is quite early, at the same time he recorded some Louis Couperin on a CD called Four Harpsichord Suites for The Sun King. I just mention it because you may find it worth hearing, given your response to the Froberger. I prefer his later Louis Couperin myself.

[milk]

The reason I keep beating a drum for Vartolo's late Froberger is that it is incredibly dark, like a cold hard and hopeless glimpse into the void. The first time I heard it I could not believe my ears, and to some extent the shock of it has never worn off, because of the complete absence of comfort, consolation.

But more importantly I'm forgetting someone with a dry style you may like in Froberger - Kenneth Gilbert.

Egarr's Froberger is quite early, at the same time he recorded some Louis Couperin on a CD called Four Harpsichord Suites for The Sun King. I just mention it because you may find it worth hearing, given your response to the Froberger. I prefer his later Louis Couperin myself.

I think I'll spend time with the Vartolo today. I wonder if Froberger thought of himself as a grim sort of fellow?

[milk]

Verlet also doles out a nice dollop of melancholy. I'm very fond of this. She can be touching too - as in the fantasia. Love that meantone! Vertolo is pure misery! In a good way!   

[milk]

Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra gives us a luxurious, plush and beautiful Froberger. I'm all about Mr. Froberger these days. 

[milk]

The magic trick of performing Froberger really delights me. Of course it depends on which part of the repertoire is done, and what kind of instrument and recoding choices as well. Still. Vartolo plays a sad, bereft and desolate Froberger, Verlet a nervous and forlorn one. With Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra we can really hear the influence on Louis Couperin; it's a lovely, dreamy and lush-sounding performance. Egarr is interesting to me for his baroque restraint. I quite like it even though, in a way, he does much less than all the others. That's a kind of magic too: expressing something pure. I'm not sure where to put Van Asperen yet except I do like his recording. I think he is on the grand side, perhaps. I have to say, Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra is great. I highly recommend her recording. Reminds me of Sempe's Couperin. 

[Mandryka]

The magic trick of performing Froberger really delights me. Of course it depends on which part of the repertoire is done, and what kind of instrument and recoding choices as well. Still. Vartolo plays a sad, bereft and desolate Froberger, Verlet a nervous and forlorn one. With Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra we can really hear the influence on Louis Couperin; it's a lovely, dreamy and lush-sounding performance. Egarr is interesting to me for his baroque restraint. I quite like it even though, in a way, he does much less than all the others. That's a kind of magic too: expressing something pure. I'm not sure where to put Van Asperen yet except I do like his recording. I think he is on the grand side, perhaps. I have to say, Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra is great. I highly recommend her recording. Reminds me of Sempe's Couperin.

For a postmodern approach try Jane Chapman; for Froberger Empfindsamer style try Johannes Maria Bogner; for a galant Froberger try Anne Marie Dragosits. There's also Glen Wilson to think about, who just may be the best of the lot.

[milk]

For a postmodern approach try Jane Chapman; for Froberger Empfindsamer style try Johannes Maria Bogner; for a galant Froberger try Anne Marie Dragosits. There's also Glen Wilson to think about, who just may be the best of the lot.

NOW you’re just trying to bankrupt me! And I’ve a baby on the way!