Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-1667); DEU

Johann Jakob Froberger (1616–1667) was born in Stuttgart into a musical family and became one of the most cosmopolitan keyboard composers of the seventeenth century. By the 1630s he was associated with the imperial court in Vienna and was sent to Rome to study with Girolamo Frescobaldi, whose influence proved fundamental. Froberger subsequently traveled extensively through Italy, France, the German lands, the Low Countries, and England, absorbing national styles and cultivating relationships with leading musicians. He served the Habsburg court for much of his career, though his final years were spent under the patronage of Duchess Sibylla of Württemberg at Héricourt. His travels and wide reputation made him an important conduit through which European keyboard traditions influenced one another.

Froberger’s surviving music is almost entirely for keyboard and includes toccatas, ricercars, capriccios, canzonas, and suites. Building on Frescobaldi’s expressive freedom, he developed a highly personal style that united Italian contrapuntal and improvisatory techniques with French dance forms and German craftsmanship. His suites helped establish the grouping of allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue that became fundamental to later Baroque keyboard music. Several pieces are strikingly autobiographical, among them the Lamentation on the Death of Ferdinand III and the programmatic Allemande faite en passant le Rhin. Froberger’s music circulated widely in manuscript and exerted a lasting influence on composers including Louis Couperin, Dieterich Buxtehude, and J. S. Bach.

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Read biography at allmusic.com.