Froberger, Allemande from Suite XIX
Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-1667) was the pre-eminent German composer of keyboard music in the mid 17th century. Few details are known about his biography, however. His father was Kapellmeister in Stuttgart, and Froberger presumably received his training there. He went to Vienna in 1634 and was, at least for a time, employed there as an organist.
Reports indicate that he traveled to Italy in 1640 to study with Frescobaldi. He later traveled to Paris where he met with Chambonnières, Louis Couperin, and Denis Gaultier. We discussed these composers in a post a few weeks ago. Froberger’s suites appear in the 1690 Bauyn Manuscript along with theirs. Froberger synthesized the Italian and French styles and became the first important German composer for the harpsichord.
He received special attention for initiating the practice of assigning specific dances in the same key to a particular suite as opposed to having performers choose freely which ones to include, but later scholars cast some doubt on this. There is some evidence that publishers controlled how Froberger’s suites were organized. But Froberger clearly contributed to the development of the Baroque suite, in particular expanding the expressive quality of the Allemande.
In this week’s video, we have a transcription of one of those Allemandes made for guitar. The performance appears in an interview with the guitarist, Tilman Hoppstock. His comments about transcription immediately precede the performance at 21:12.
