Talk:Johann Jakob Froberger

Untitled
I do not know who is the main author of this page, but s-he might be interested about my comments on my yesterday's participation in the presentation of the Froberger autograph which is going to be auctioned at Sotheby's on November 30.

Diez Eichler, Dorothea Demel and myself went to the Sotheby's presentation of the Froberger autograph in Stuttgart yesterday. The volume was presented by Simon Maguire, their handwriting expert. The presentation took place in the Musical Instruments Museum of the Landesmuseum Stuttgart. After the visual presentation, a hitherto unknown capriccio was played by Jörg Halubek from the local school of music. My following comments only elaborate on details which are not in the Sotheby booklet and website announcements.

Appearance: The volume is in vintage mint condition, with only minute corner rubbing, intact guilding, paper in perfect condition, overall unused appearance. Oblong page format c. 8.5 x 24 cms. Two different sorts of paper: The paper with compositions is without watermark, the paper for the title and last pages is watermarked. The dedication itself is missing. Comment: This volume must have survived in a very protected environment, because it looks unused. Probably it was never used for playing, but only for copying. The format is unusual, but we saw an identical format in a very related context: Harald Schukraft, the established expert on the history of the Württemberg ruling family to which Froberger's late patron Sybilla belonged, kindly showed us the coffin of Sybilla in the publicly unaccessible crypt of the Württemberg family in the Stuttgart Stiftskirche. This coffin on close inspection showed to be in deplorable condition, but the front-end plaque is intact, and it shows Sybilla playing an organ with one hand and a clavichord with the other, and the volume she is playing from on the organ has exactly the same format appearance. I have put a photograph of this plaque in the files area of both the harpsichord and clavichord yahoogroups.

Provenance: Simon Maguire wouldn't elaborate on that for understandable reasons. The volume has no recorded history whatsoever, and it isn't one of the two missing libros, it is an addition to the body of Froberger autographs. Mr. Maguire said that the owner had purchased it because of the glorious binding, and only later had he found out that the compositions were hitherto unknown autographs. Mr. Maguire added that the source could be in the Stuttgart region. Comment: The glorious cover part I put into the urban legend category, the Stuttgart part I take seriously.

The pieces: The handwriting is the same as the autographs in Vienna (according to http://derstandard.at/?url=/?id=2669826 Maguire had compared it with the facsimiles). I also have those (Garland), and I can only confirm that the appearance is identical. Comment: Even when the hand is Froberger's, there will have to be intense scholarly research on whether all of the pieces are by him. The Sybilla lament on her future death shows harmonic weaknesses in the known bars, the capriccio which Halubek played shows voice-leading quirks which are unusual for Froberger - a second-interval tone step in the theme appears as a repetition of the same tone during the development in one of the parts, which Halubek found odd.

Open questions The volume binding shows the arms of Leopold I of Vienna, but the dedication page never was written, and there is no record of the volume ever having been in Vienna (or elsewhere). The inclusion of three pieces named after the protestant Württemberg Sybilla and Leopold in a dedication volume to the catholic Hapsburgs is curious. A lament on the future death of another person is highly unusual, such memento mori pieces were usually written for oneself.

As a final remark, one can only hope that this volume ends up in public domain, and that it becomes widely accessible to scholars. We Froberger scholars and players have years of work in front of us with this volume. I have put pictures of the facsimiles which Sotheby's distributed in its brochure into the files area of both yahoogroups. Michael Zapf

A little afternote on the Sybilla lament: If you look at the title of this piece, it reads: "Meditation, la quelle se joue lentement avec discretion. faict á Madrid sur la Mort future. de son Altesse Serenisme Madame Sybille, Duchesse de Wirtemberg, Princesse de Montbeliard + f +"

So far, everybody has read this as meaning a lament on the "future death of Sybilla". But if you take the dot after "future" serious (I also had overlooked it), it could read: Meditation on the future death. BY Sybilla.... Michael Zapf — Preceding unsigned comment added by Clavichord~enwiki (talk • contribs) 13:31, 24 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Michael, I left a comment for you on the German Froberger Diskussion page.--dunnhaupt 14:22, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

--Michael Zapf 06:29, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

"Toccata and Suite in A minor" in the Media section
I suggest removing the recording from the secion. For one thing, the toccata isn't Froberger's, its DTÖ #20 and was composed by Georg Muffat. At least 20 years have passed since this fact was established (see, for example, the 1994 "Complete Works" recording by Richard Egarr, or the recent Rampe catalogue where the toccata is not included). The gigue is placed last in the suite (which is #10 in DTÖ, FbWV 610, the fourth in Libro Quarto), which means that the recording is really old, because in Froberger's autograph the gigue is the second movement, and placing the gigue last is a very well-known mistake (explained in the article, by the way). Finally, the instrument is a Neupert harpsichord, and even though I like Landowska and Pishner, its not an authentic instrument (besides, to my ears this particular harpsichord sounds rather badly and I've got some problems with the interpretation). Jashiin 13:07, 2 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I've removed it. For me the killer is that it's not by Froberger at all. I was never a fan of the sound of the Neupert harpsichord presented on the album it comes from, but the toccata and suite sounds better to me than the Capriccio on the Departure of His Beloved Brother by J. S. Bach performed in the same recording. The order of suite movements would be a difficult one to fix ... probably the best way if possible would be to split the recording into separate tracks and present it in the correct order in Muffat's article. Graham 87 14:41, 15 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Woah, Graham, thanks a lot! I actually forgot all about this. I'll try to remember about fixing the audio, maybe I'll do this later this week. --Jashiin (talk) 18:13, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Connection to King Charles II
There’s a story here about him visiting Westminster Abbey, and ultimately becoming organist at King Charles II of England’s wedding to Catherine of Braganza, where his inattention caused a problem. But all was put right, and he was honoured by the King by being made official court harpsichordist, and became fabulously rich before returning to Germany. Charles and Catherine’s wedding was in May 1662, five years before Froberger died, yet we say little is known of his activities in his last 10 years. There are many other online references to this very public time in London – e.g.. Something needs to be said about this. -- JackofOz (talk) 04:57, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I believe this may be one of the stories recounted by Froberger himself. Some of his titled works have prefaces in which he elaborates on real life events that inspired the piece in question. Unfortunately, I've never seen any of these prefaces in print, so I can't add anything to the article. --Jashiin (talk) 08:05, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

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