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Harpsichord & Fortepiano

Froberger’s Suites are much more often heard than the fugues. There are complete Froberger editions by Bob van Asperen, Richard Egarr and others, Glen Wilson has recorded 23 suites; his interesting and substantial essay is available online. Gilbert Rowland has recorded complete sets of Rameau, Soler, Mattheson and others, and this double CD is the first of a projected complete set of Froberger’s Suites for Divine Art’s Athene label. Nearly all of the twelve suites in this recording are of the Allemande-Courante-Sarabande-Gigue type (sometimes in a different order). In the Libro Secondo, five of the six suites have no gigue; one of them appears in this recording followed by a ‘Chiqve’ from a manuscript of 1688.

The harpsichord used is by Andrew Wooderson after Goermans (1750); it was recorded in a resonant acoustic, giving a truly luscious sound. The booklet does not specify the tuning, but it sounds like an 18^th-century circulating temperament, appropriate for the instruments but perhaps less so for the music. Rowland gives a straightforward account of the suites. He plays all the repeats, and adds a great deal of ornamentation throughout. I enjoyed most of this recording; Rowland plays with energy and a good forward drive in most of the movements. The sarabandes are slow, sometimes so slow that the music did not hang together, Occasionally (for example in the FbWV602 sarabande) the pulse was lost; a few of the bars seemed to have two and a bit beats, quite disconcerting on the listener. I would have preferred fewer ornaments, and I felt that some other harpsichordists take a more thoughtful approach to each phrase and harmonic inflection. But my overall impression of Rowland’s recording was of a glorious sound and enjoyable music.