Diskussion:Johann Jakob Froberger

Zur allgemeinen Information hier mein Kurzbericht über meine Teilnahme an der Präsentation des Autographs, das am 30.11. bei Sotheby's versteigert wird. Im Postskriptum zweifle ich die Anwesenheit Frobergers in Madrid an. Man kann die Überschrift so lesen, dass SYBILLA in Madrid dieses Stück schrieb.

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 (and make the French better): Meditation on the future death. BY Sybilla.... Michael Zapf

Hi Michael, I agree with you. I read this as "Eine Meditation auf den kommenden Tod", "A Meditation on Coming Death", written by Sibylla when she was in Spain. It is simply not a lament at all, but a "memento mori".

NB: In those days, a ms. capital letter D looked very much like a lower case "d". --Dunnhaupt 15:36, 12. Apr. 2007 (CEST)

Inzwischen hat Bob van Asperen, dem Sotheby's längeren Zugang zu dem Autograph erlaubte, im "Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music", Vol. 13 No. 1 eine Zusammenfassung der Kompositionen veröffentlicht, die derzeit das gesamte Wissen beinhaltet, das wir zu dem Band haben. Ich habe das Weblink auf der Hauptseite mit eingefügt. http://sscm-jscm.press.uiuc.edu/v13/no1/vanasperen.html Michael Zapf

Taufdatum

Jeder getaufte Mensch hat ein Taufdatum. Biographisch relevant ist das nicht. Oder warum augerechnet bei Froberger? 91.43.3.110 11:27, 9. Feb. 2014 (CET)

Geburts- und Taufdatum

Sehr späte Erwiderung auf obigen Beitrag und die folgende Entfernung des Taufdatums: In Zeiten, als es hohe Kindersterblichkeit und noch keine Geburtsurkunden gab, ist das genaue Geburtsdatum von Personen oft nicht gesichert. Eher dokumentiert ist hingegen das Taufdatum, weil das in den gut verwahrten Kirchmatrikeln verzeichnet wurde. So sicher scheint der 18. Mai jedenfalls nicht zu sein - MGG Online sagt überhaupt, Froberger wäre am 28. Mai geboren (was aber ein Tippfehler sein könnte). Grove Music online nennt nur das Taudfatum 19. Mai. Die Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie von 1878 hat noch überhaupt keine Ahnung, die Deutsche Biographie von 1961 nennt schließlich den 18. Mai. Meine Vermutung: Das Taufdatum 19. Mai ist gesichert, das Geburtsdatum 18. Mai ist daraus abgeleitet, weil Taufen schnellstmöglich nach der Geburt vorgenommen wurden. Wohl deswegen war im Artike usprünglich das Taufdatum genannt, und ich meine, es sollte wieder hinein. Vielleicht hat aber jemand ein umfangreicheres gedrucktes Werk zu Froberger zur Hand und kann zu der Frage noch etwas beitragen?--Schreckgespenst • Buh! 14:26, 24. Feb. 2023 (CET)