| Summary: | The research is based upon the hypothesis that the keyboard music of Johann Jacob Froberger (1616-1667) was significantly influenced by the music of the Italian secular madrigals of the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, madrigal composers were at the forefront of musical development and it is plausible that their innovations should have had a significant influence on Froberger, contributing to the development of his expressive keyboard style. The madrigal composers used various new compositional techniques, many of them aimed at expressing emotions. Characteristics of the style of the madrigali moderni (a term used by Frescobaldi in the 1637 preface to Toccate e Partite, Libro Primo) include the variation of tempo for expressive purposes, word painting, new types of ornamentation, adventurous harmony, chromaticism and dissonance and quickly changing rhythmic and textural features. The aim of this thesis is to show how Froberger adapted these techniques for use in his keyboard style.
In order to test the hypothesis, I researched the musical characteristics of the Italian secular madrigals of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Some Italian vocal music other than secular madrigals was analyzed and some madrigals and other vocal music from a little earlier or a little later were also consulted. However, the vast majority of the examples that I have used to illustrate my findings come from Italian secular madrigals composed (or at least published) in the late 16th and early 17th century when the composition of madrigals was at its peak in both volume and brilliance. A detailed style-critical study of the entire keyboard oeuvre of Froberger was undertaken to determine if the various characteristics of this vocal music could be found in his music. Some of Frobergerâs (Italian) predecessors on the keyboard, such as de Macque, Mayone, Trabaci, Frescobaldi and Michelangelo Rossi seem also to have been influenced by the Italian madrigalists and where appropriate, I have included examples from the works of these composers. Before the main body of the research, I have included a chapter on Frobergerâs life and travels; a comprehensive collection of the information that is currently known. In recent years, some fascinating research has been undertaken that has thrown light on Frobergerâs life and travels, but all the information has not previously been presented in a chronological format.
The main body of the research is divided into four sections, each of which discusses a particular musical aspect of the madrigals and shows similar usage in Frobergerâs works. The first of these sections discusses the use of âmadrigalismsâ for expressive ends. This chapter analyses some of the more commonly used word painting devices and shows their use in madrigals and in Frobergerâs music. The second of these sections discusses sprezzatura in the wider meaning given to it by Caccini in his Nuove Musiche (1601/2), where it encompasses not only rhapsodic tempo fluctuations but also the use of dissonance for expressive purposes. The third section discusses the use of ornaments in the madrigals and shows how Froberger used a variety of specifically Italian vocal ornaments in his music, as well as the more standard range of ornaments used by keyboard composers. The fourth section describes the continuous invention and diversity present in the madrigals and in Frobergerâs music. This invention manifests itself in, amongst other things, the use of a wide variety of rhythms and textures to portray the agitation of the passions and a delight in complexity.
Within these sections, the theories of the time are discussed, examples are given from the madrigals and parallel examples are drawn from Frobergerâs music. At the end of the thesis four case studies are presented to show how the hypothesis fits entire works by Froberger. Frobergerâs oeuvre can arguably be divided into laments (and similar forms), partitas, contrapuntal works and toccatas. The case studies are intended to represent one of each of these forms. In each of the studies, certain aspects of the music are compared to the madrigals and parallels are drawn to extra-musical events or phenomena in order to place the particular composition in its historical and social context.
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