Johann Jacob Froberger was one of the most cosmopolitan musicians of the seventeenth century. He made extended visits to France, Italy, and Austria, as well as other shorter visits to courts scattered around northern Europe. At the age of 21, he was granted a stipend to study in Rome with Girolamo Frescobaldi, and he appears to have stayed in Rome for several years. After Frescobaldi's death in 1643, Froberger made another trip to Italy in the late 1640s. About half of Froberger's keyboard music (including all of his toccatas) is in the Italian style and is clearly indebted to his study with Frescobaldi. While Froberger's toccatas are undoubtedly indebted to Frescobaldi, Froberger made his own unique adaptation of the toccata model he inherited from the Italians. The typical Frescobaldi toccata meanders around with new ideas cropping up rather spontaneously, in a sort of stream-of-consciousness manner. Froberger, on the other hand, alternates sections of free spontaneous material, with sections of controlled imitative polyphony. Froberger opens this toccata with a segment of free rhapsodic passagework that finishes off with some bold harmonic surprises. The following section is imitative polyphony that begins in close stretto imitation. Eventually the imitative polyphony decays into free rhapsodic material again. This is followed by another polyphonic section which tosses around a motive rather than a full-fledged subject. This eventually decays once again into a spontaneous outburst of quasi-improvisatory passage work that concludes the work.

© Andrus Madsen, Rovi