Canzona in F major, FbWV 303

Instrumentation

Collections

Musical Terms (7)

• affekt German
  Affection or passion — the doctrine that each piece of music should express a single, unified emotional state throughout. In Froberger's suites and tombeaux, each movement has a clearly defined affekt that the performer must identify and sustain.
  Before playing any Froberger movement, determine its affekt: is it grief, joy, agitation, melancholy, tenderness? Every ornament, every dynamic shade, every tempo nuance should serve that single emotional quality. A movement with a mixed affekt signals something programmatic.
• hexachord Latin/Greek
  A six-note scale segment used in Renaissance and early Baroque counterpoint as the basis for modal solmisation. The ascending hexachord Ut–Re–Mi–Fa–Sol–La appears as the subject of Froberger's most famous fantasia (FbWV 201) and as a foundational resource throughout Baroque contrapuntal writing.
  The hexachord subject in FbWV 201 should be treated as a cantus firmus — slightly slower and heavier than the surrounding counterpoint — each time it enters. The challenge is maintaining clarity of the subject across all five voices without losing the buoyancy of the surrounding figuration.
• inégalité French
  A French performance practice in which pairs of notated equal notes are performed with a slight inequality — the first note lengthened and the second shortened — to give dance music a subtle lilt. Froberger absorbed this style from French lute and harpsichord music and applied it in his suites.
  The degree of inequality should be subtle in Froberger — not the exaggerated dotting of a French overture, but a gentle forward lean on the beat. Apply it most naturally in the courante and gigue movements; the allemande calls for more equality. Let the harmonic rhythm and melodic shape guide how much inequality feels natural.
• soggetto cavato Italian
  A subject 'carved out' of a set of solmisation syllables derived from words or letters. In Froberger's Fantasia sopra Ut Re Mi Fa Sol La (FbWV 201), the subject is derived from the ascending hexachord, and in FbWV 204 from the notes Sol La Re — a musical cipher.
  When playing a soggetto cavato fantasia, the subject should be perceptible in every contrapuntal entry even as it is transformed. Slightly weight the leading note of each subject entry against the surrounding counterpoint so the listener can trace it through the texture.
• style brisé French
  Broken style — the texture of French lute music translated to the keyboard: chords spread arpeggiated across the registers, inner voices suspended into neighbouring beats, a texture that seems to float freely between melody and harmony. Froberger absorbed this style from French lutenists and used it particularly in his allemandes.
  Style brisé requires a generous sustain pedal (or sustained fingers on the harpsichord) so that spread notes accumulate into rich harmonic clouds. The effect should be of a lute improvising — free, floating, with no rigid pulse. Avoid any heavy accentuation on the beat.
• stylus phantasticus Latin
  The 'fantastic style' — Athanasius Kircher's term for the most free and unrestrained keyboard style of the 17th century, typified by Froberger's toccatas. Characterised by unpredictable changes of texture, free improvisatory passages alternating with imitative counterpoint, extreme dissonances, unexpected harmonic turns, and a sense of restless invention.
  In the stylus phantasticus the performer's own expressivity is invited. The written notes are a framework for interpretation rather than a fixed score — ornament freely, vary articulation between sections, and allow the improvisatory passages to breathe and expand. Kircher described it as 'bound to nothing, neither to words nor to a harmonious subject.'
• tombeau French
  Tomb — a memorial piece lamenting a named individual's death, written in the French lute tradition and adapted by Froberger for harpsichord. In Froberger's hands, the tombeau is typically cast as a slow allemande of unusual expressive intensity, with a programmatic title identifying the deceased.
  The tombeau should feel like a journey through grief, not a static portrait. Begin with contained sorrow and allow the expressive dissonances and chromatic turns to gradually accumulate intensity. The final bars are often more resigned than the middle — exhausted rather than resolved.