Vienna [1]: Johann Jacob Froberger

It is, however, only with Kindermann’s peer, Johann Jacob Froberger (1616–1667), that we find an outspoken harpsichord composer and, together with Gottlieb Muffat, the most important encountered in this chapter. Born in Stuttgart, he probably learned his craft from Johann Ulrich Steigleder, but as a Viennese organist, Froberger, the Catholic convert, managed to obtain a stipend from Emperor Ferdinand III to complete his studies in Rome with the famous Frescobaldi. He did so between 1637 and 1641. On his return, Froberger was duly added to the imperial payroll as an organist, which he remained intermittently until 1657. His legendary travels as a virtuoso and probably also as some sort of secret diplomat carried him through Europe; longer stays can be presumed in Brussels and Paris. His friendly competition with Matthias Weckmann at the Dresden court at the beginning of 1653 is famous.¹ After Ferdinand’s death in April 1657, Froberger apparently fell out of favor at the Vienna court and was dismissed for political reasons by the new Emperor Leopold I – even though the latter turned out to be an even greater music lover than his father and became the protégé of many musicians and composers, including several central ones for the keyboard, as we shall see shortly. But Froberger’s dedication of two important keyboard works to him remained fruitless. Froberger thus went back to Stuttgart and Paris and eventually found shelter as the teacher of Countess Sibylla of Württemberg-Montbéliard, living quietly in her castle in Héricourt during the last years of his life.

Although he principally served as an imperial organist, Froberger was above all a harpsichordist. We now know that he went to Frescobaldi specifically to study “cembalo,” for which the Italian’s playing was particularly renowned.² A diplomat in Vienna in 1649 described Froberger as “un homme très-rare sur les espinettes” (“a man with a rare talent for the harpsichord”).³ And it is beyond doubt that the harpsichord suites, together with the tombeaus, form the most important category in Froberger’s oeuvre. More idiomatic music for the harpsichord is indeed hardly imaginable – and the same is true for most of the toccatas. It is furthermore striking that the large hexachord fantasia (FbWV201), which Kircher incorporated in score notation as a textbook example of a composition in “stylus phantasticus” in his Musurgia universalis (1650), was inscribed, no doubt at Froberger’s instigation, “Clauicymbalis accomodata” (“made for the harpsichord”).⁴ In this fine tribute to the long-standing north-European tradition of ambitious keyboard fantasias on the hexachord, Froberger gives ample testimony of his contrapuntal prowess.

A particularly fascinating field of research with Froberger’s music concerns the sources. Froberger himself stated at the end of his life that he was against the wide dissemination of his music since others could only spoil it without his specific personal instructions.⁵ In spite of this, his music is encountered in a large quantity of sources and was copied well into the eighteenth century. Furthermore, the appearance of several prints proffering a fair sampling of his keyboard music in the 1690s (thus long after his death), including ten suites in an Amsterdam print, is highly unusual for the era. But pride of place must go to the three autograph collections preserved in the imperial archive in Vienna. This is especially true for the two surviving volumes from a set of four, the Libro Secondo from 1649 and the Libro Quarto from 1656, which present immaculate texts of Froberger’s cosmopolitan keyboard program (the lost first and third volumes must have been from ca. 1645 and 1653, respectively); the Libro Quarto in particular is a lavishly produced volume. Each volume contains six each of toccatas, suites, and fugal pieces in stile antico (fantasias and ricercares, respectively) and stile moderno (canzonas and capriccios). Three recently discovered sources of gradually increasing importance primarily concern the suites. A manuscript copy from ca. 1675, which turned up in the late 1990s, contains copies allegedly taken directly from the autographs of no fewer than fourteen suites.⁶ Another important manuscript from about the same period came to light a few years later, as part of the resurfaced Singakademie collection.⁷ This manuscript contains only harpsichord music (toccatas, suites, and tombeaus) in clear texts with several important musical additions. Finally, a completely unknown autograph from Froberger’s final years turned up at auction in 2006; among its thirty items are found eighteen new pieces,⁸ which include a suite, a tombeau, and a méditation. Unfortunately, at present it is still unavailable for either study or editing.

As befits a disciple of Frescobaldi, Froberger wrote the majority of his toccatas for the harpsichord. Froberger here refers to the Neapolitan-Roman tradition, in which only special forms of the toccata such as the toccata “alla levatione” and “sopra gli pedali” are destined for the organ, while the nonspecific ones are (primarily) written for the harpsichord. While the pedal toccata, a standard item in the later South German tradition, was foreign to Froberger’s mercurial temperament, and thus absent from his oeuvre, one finds three Elevatione toccatas which are indeed clearly written for the sustained organ sound.⁹ The strong connection of the remaining toccatas with the harpsichord is confirmed by their close kinship with Louis Couperin’s unmeasured harpsichord preludes. One can discern three stages. The first one can be found in the 1649 Libro secondo. Not only the two organ toccatas FbWV105–106 appear paired but the four harpsichord ones too. Thus two weighty minor-key works are followed by a pair of notably shorter and lighter works in major keys.¹⁰ From this group, the second one in D minor has become justly famous, with its dark tone and densely written imitative sections based on the descending chromatic fourth. A second group, which can tentatively be associated with the lost Libro terzo from 1653, comprises the six works FbWV113–116, 118, and 121. They are marked by a mature sense of form and by imitative sections in which the theme proper is often replaced by motivic interplay. The third group, found in the Libro quarto of 1656 (FbWV107–112), is generally more compact, with imitative sections of almost laconic brevity.

It has long been recognized that Froberger’s suites form his most original contribution to the keyboard repertoire. Furthermore, research has shown that Mattheson’s observation that Froberger adapted the “Französische Lautenmanier von Galot und Gaultier” to the harpsichord should be taken at face value; by combining the brilliant Italian style with the subtle French lute manner, he developed a new, very personal “vermischten, angenehmen Styl.”¹¹ In order to clarify Froberger’s epochal creations here, it is important to eliminate a host of spurious and questionable attributions from the “anonymous” repertoire that clutters the recent Froberger-Werkeverzeichnis.¹² The newly discovered sources if anything demonstrate that the number of suites must have been relatively limited, but that they always maintain an immediately recognizable profile and high quality. Another striking aspect of this corpus is the great number of programmatic pieces (principally the allemandes) found here (see Table 5.1).¹³

Many of Froberger’s most enduring compositions are found among these pieces. With few exceptions (i.e., FbWV606, 611 and 615), the subject matter is usually a sad one, ranging from a depiction of a perilous Rhine-crossing (FbWV627) to passionate outbursts of grief over the death of someone obviously close to the composer (FbWV632 and 633). The latter work, the Tombeau sur la tres douloureuse Mort de sa majeste imperiale le troisiesme Ferdinand, which, because of its three rather than two sections, should be considered a pavan, arguably forms Froberger’s masterpiece, written for the most important patron in his life.¹⁴ In this work of deeply felt sorrow, Froberger incorporated much symbolism. The basic key of F of course refers to the mourned one’s name, and the three sections to his imperial number. Modulations as a rule occur within the flat region (f, c, g, A♭), which makes the sudden turn to A major (Example 5.1a), achieved with an enharmonic change from B♭ minor, all the more striking.

The piece opens with a festive F major “style brisé” figure, which is, however, immediately darkened into F minor (Example 5.1b); this is emphasized by an immediate repeat of the phrase a fourth higher. The ending is similarly striking (Example 5.1c). After arriving at a bleak, unresolved dominant seventh chord, there is a protracted, chromaticized cadence featuring a prolonged cadential appoggiatura whose “brisé” repeats on the neighboring notes F and G clearly evoke the tolling of death bells. The final resolution into a widely spread F major chord is thus a real transformation from darkness into the bright light of heaven, where the monarch is duly received by the triple sounding of the high f² (“Ferdinand III”). The three sections consist of thirteen, eleven, and again thirteen bars; the number thirteen played a significant role in Froberger’s life and rather pessimistic worldview.¹⁵ What is more, the striking opening and closing passages shown in Example 5.1b and 5.1c imply by their nature that they and thus their corresponding sections are not to be repeated, and this in contrast with the central section, which is emphasized by the presence of “first-” and “second-time” bars for bar 24.¹⁶ This results in a total of 2 x 13 plus 2 x 11 = 48 bars, which was the age reached by Ferdinand III at his death.

Example 5.1 a) Froberger, Tombeau faict sur la tres douloureuse Mort de sa Majeste Imperiale le Troisiesme Ferdinand, FbWV633, mm. 29–30; b) Froberger, Tombeau faict sur la tres douloureuse Mort de sa Majeste Imperiale le Troisiesme Ferdinand, FbWV633, mm. 1–3; c) Froberger, Tombeau faict sur la tres douloureuse Mort de sa Majeste Imperiale le Troisiesme Ferdinand, FbWV633, mm. 34–37

Vienna [2]: Ebner, Kerll, Poglietti, Richter

Froberger’s senior organist colleague at the Vienna court, Wolfgang Ebner (1612–1665), who sought to use nepotism to turn the Imperial organist posts into a family affair and may have been behind Froberger’s downfall, left a small but distinguished oeuvre in which he shows a clear penchant for variations. Foremost is the Aria Augustissimi … XXXVI modis variata ac pro cimbalo accomodata, printed in Prague in 1648 with a dedication to Ferdinand III, the author of the short aria. The variations are divided into three groups of a dozen variations each, inscribed Courante (vars. 13–24), Sarabande (vars. 25–36) and by analogy [Allemande] (vars. 1–12).

Johann Caspar Kerll (1627–1693) was probably at some point a pupil of Froberger, since they were apparently both at the archducal court in Brussels at the end of the 1640s. If so, it is remarkable that Kerll’s four surviving suites are so modest in comparison to his teacher’s and that there is little if any trace of a direct Froberger influence. Kerll’s remaining keyboard music (apart from the one published work for organ, the Modulatio organico from 1686) is notably more ambitious, particularly his cycle of eight toccatas. These do not imitate the alternation of free and fugal sections characteristic of the Froberger type, but seem directly dependent on Italian models, notably those of Frescobaldi and later Italians. Two of them are by their typology clearly destined for the organ, namely numbers 4 (“durezze e ligature”) and 6 (“con pedali”; i.e., with long pedal points). Since Toccata 2 is also marked by a lengthy opening pedal point, it appears that the even-numbered toccatas are for organ, while the odd-numbered ones seem to be written for harpsichord. Indeed, the latter includes a Toccata (no. 5) marked “tutti di salti,” and is thus exquisitely idiomatic to the harpsichord, while the exploration of rhythmical problems and advanced keyboard virtuosity of Toccata 3 seems clearly inspired by Frescobaldi’s famous virtuoso Toccata nona (Libro 2). Extroverted harpsichord music is also present in Kerll’s well-known Capricio sopra il cucu and in two ostinato compositions: a bouncing major-key Ciacona (in C) consisting of twenty variations and a more dramatic Passacaglia, in D minor, with twice the number of variations. This set the tone for ostinato pieces of many subsequent South German keyboardists, who often copied this major/minor constellation (e.g., Georg and Gottlieb Muffat, Johann Philipp Krieger, Fischer, and Fux).

A particularly fascinating figure in Vienna was the rather enigmatic Alessandro Poglietti (d. 1683), about whom little is known prior to his appointment as an organist at the imperial court in 1661; he in all probability hailed from Tuscany. Much admired by Leopold I, Poglietti’s keyboard music, other than a learned and much-copied collection of twelve ricercares, is marked by lively virtuosity and a preference for programmatic and picturesque writing. He seems also the first composer to begin his harpsichord suites (of the standard order allemande – courante – sarabande – gigue) with a two-part introduction in the improvisatory-imitative style, such as a toccata with canzona. The essence of his harpsichord music is found in a remarkable autograph dedicated in 1677 to Emperor Leopold I and his third wife Eleonora Magdalena, whom he had just married: the celebrated Rossignolo.¹⁷ Expressly designated on the title page as written for “cembalo,” it contains a fascinating mixture of the serious and the comic.

The double title page sports an ingenious allegory of musical time, vanity, and eternal happiness wished for the imperial couple. Its thirty-six pieces – an allusion to the emperor’s age – offer a generous sampling of all contemporary harpsichord genres, ordered into three categories: a suite (opening with a toccata and canzona); an aria with variations; and an “appendix” which supplies specimens of the two imitative genres hitherto missing (ricercare and capriccio); and two pieces directly imitating the nightingale. The variation principle is omnipresent: not only in the twenty variations of the central aria part but also in the doubles added to all dances of the suite (in the case of the allemande, two doubles); also notable is the fact that the imitative pieces in part three are conceived as variations. The ricercare is followed by a “Syncopatione del Ricercar” and a more loosely related “Capriccio sopra il Ricercar.” Both variations enliven the subject with repeated notes and thus smoothly progress to the culmination of the collection: the two free bird pieces (“Arie Bizarre”), with their frantic note repetitions and tremolos. Hand-in-hand with this thorough exploration of the variation comes a strong emphasis on unabashed virtuosity. Thirty-second figuration, for example, is found in the toccata, three of the doubles, several of the aria variations, and the two concluding pieces. One also finds, hidden in the first two parts, many allusions to the bird of the title, in the form of repeated notes, repetitions, and tremolos. Another striking feature is the often very full chordal writing. The peculiar technical demands are reminiscent of the music of John Bull, and there is indeed evidence that Poglietti was familiar with Bull’s music.

In the central “Aria Allemagna con alcuni variation” specifically written for the birthday of the new Empress Eleonora (6 January 1677), Poglietti delights in the imitation of folk instruments such as the hurdy-gurdy (var. 5), the Bohemian bagpipe (var. 8), the Dutch flageolet (var. 9), the Bavarian shawm (var. 11), or the Hungarian fiddle (var. 19), as well as other pictorial moments such as a procession of old women (var. 13), French kisses (var. 15), or a rope dance (var. 16). But he was also careful to exhibit the “learned” side of his musicianship, which is clearly visible in variation 4 with the theme in the bass and, especially, with the use of traditional score notation for the two ricercare movements.¹⁸

A similar, if much more sober collection of harpsichord music, the Toccate, Canzoni, Ricercari et altre Galanterie (A-Wn, Mus. Hs. 19167) by Franz Matthias Techelmann (ca. 1649–1714), was dedicated to Leopold I (ca. 1684), who duly rewarded Techelmann in 1685 with a post as a second court organist. It contains two cycles (in A minor and C major), each consisting of a toccata, canzona, ricercare, and suite; the first cycle adds an aria with thirty variations. The only programmatic piece is the Allemande in C, “dell’Allegrezze alla Liberazione di Vienna,” in celebration of the liberation from the Turkish invasion in 1683, which had cost the life of Techelmann’s predecessor, Poglietti.

The Würzburg organist Ferdinand Tobias Richter (1651–1711) came to Vienna in 1675 and was sent by the Emperor to Rome in 1679 for further studies with Bernardo Pasquini. In 1683 he became court organist and later tutor to the royal children. His fame as a keyboard player was such that Johann Pachelbel dedicated his Hexachordum Apollonis of 1699 to him (along with Buxtehude). It is therefore all the more regrettable that no autographs from his work in royal courts are extant. All that survives seems written for the harpsichord: principally five suites (a sixth is only a small fragment), which are always introduced by a toccatina, sometimes with an additional capriccio as well. One finds evidence of the lively imagination of the composer everywhere in, for example, a dashing passacaglia in F major, or the wayward fugal subjects and free development of the two capriccios. However, what may be regarded as Richter’s most important harpsichord piece has remained unrecognized thus far. A Berlin manuscript (D-B, Mus. ms. 30318) contains two separate movements in D minor (a capriccio and a little further down a toccata), which appear in reverse order and united as a “Toccata” in the so-called Benisch Manuscript (US-NH, LM 5056, p. 222–27) attributed to Bernardo Pasquini, which is clearly a mistake.¹⁹ The sparkle and variety of this large piece of 107 measures makes it one of the most attractive harpsichord compositions of the Viennese school.

Nuremberg: Schultheiss, the Kriegers, the Pachelbels

The suites of the Viennese masters encountered so far all remained in manuscript during their author’s lifetime (as did the suites of Georg Muffat and Fux). It was thus left to the rather obscure Nuremberg organist Benedict Schultheiss (1653–1693) to receive the honor of having published the first harpsichord suites in Germany. They appeared in two installments in his hometown in 1679–1680, as Muth- und Geist-ermuntrender Clavier-Lust. They consolidate the “classic” quartet of dances allemande – courante – sarabande – gigue in ten competently written, if rather modest suites, the first four of which are prefaced by lively preludes.

Schultheiss must have rubbed shoulders with his peer and townsman Johann Pachelbel (1653–1706), both having been taught by Georg Caspar Wecker. Remarkably, the Lutheran Pachelbel sought to further his craft in Catholic Vienna, where he stayed between 1673 and 1675 and was probably tutored by Kerll, but he eventually found employment in Thuringia, notably 1678–1690 in Erfurt. After brief stints in Stuttgart and Gotha, he finally returned in 1695 to his native Nuremberg. This renowned teacher was of course first of all a great master of the Lutheran organ chorale and other typical organ forms, such as the pedal toccata and the verset fugue, but there still remains a substantial amount of his music that seems to be primarily destined for the harpsichord. There is even one category of chorale arrangement – the chorale partita – that appears to have been conceived in terms of a stringed keyboard rather than the organ. A lost print, the Musicalischen Sterbens-Gedancken, published in Erfurt in 1683 after the plague had taken away his wife and son, contained four such cycles for “Clavier.” Its content has been preserved in manuscript and consisted of partitas on consolatory chorales, such as Alle Menschen müssen sterben and Herzlich tut mich verlangen.

A secular counterpart to this was published in Nuremberg in 1699, the famous Hexachordum Apollinis. According to the title page it was written for “organo pneumatico, vel clavato cymbalo,” although the extensive use of style brisé throughout the collection – actually much more so than in both the Sterbensgedancken and five further aria sets preserved in manuscript – points rather exclusively to the latter instrument. These six cycles on original themes – more accurately, the bass lines, making them closely akin to the ciacona – show careful planning. The first five are neatly arranged in ascending fashion: D minor, E minor, F major, G minor, and A minor. The sixth set would naturally have been in B♭, and Pachelbel indeed duly notates two flats in the key signature. However, the piece is really in F minor, necessitating the constant application of additional flats. Apart from the unusual key, the Aria sexta also stands out from the rest because of its higher number of variations (eight instead of five or six), the use of the ciacona-like 3/4 meter instead of common time, and the addition of a title, “Aria Sebaldina” – the latter doubtlessly an affective reference to the church where he ended his career, St. Sebaldus in Nuremberg. This melancholic work is, if anything, even more refined and varied than the other sets.

Two of Pachelbel’s ciaconas – he uses the term indiscriminately for both major- and minor-mode pieces – are almost aria variations as well, based as they are on a binary bass theme of 2 × 4 bars. These two pieces, both of them in D, are, however, much more schematic in their variation manner. The real high point of the genre (apart from the well-known one in D minor for organ with pedal) is found in two works discovered jointly in a late Brussels source (B-Br, Ms. II 3911 Mus.). They are complementary in both key and mood. The Ciacona in F major (forty-one variations on a four-bar ostinato) is exuberant and probably represents Pachelbel’s most virtuosic keyboard work. The one in F minor (based on the descending tetrachord) exhibits a character closely akin to the “Aria Sebaldina”: refined and melancholic. Only three suites survive under Pachelbel’s name, and of these one has been reattributed to Froberger. This suite, a fine extended one in E minor (Allemande – Courante – Sarabande – Double – Gigue) from a now lost Nuremberg source is, however, entirely plausible as a Pachelbel composition. Though some Froberger mannerisms are certainly present, Pachelbel was certainly capable of emulation, and some stylistic traits point to the late seventeenth century, such as the style of the Double or the rolling motive in the second half of the Gigue. The two other suites, in F major and G minor, are more modest in scope and dispense with a gigue.

Pachelbel’s son Wilhelm Hieronymus (1686–1764), who remained in Nuremberg all his working life, apparently wrote a great quantity of keyboard music that is mostly lost. The outspoken style of what survives – notably found in two small prints he brought out ca. 1725 – can only be explained as a reaction to his father’s rather subdued manner. Wilhelm’s preludes, fantasias, and fugues are extroverted and virtuosic, with a good dose of the galant and the concertante.

The careers of the brothers Johann Philipp (1649–1725) and Johann (1652–1735) Krieger followed a similar course to that of Johann Pachelbel. Both keyboardists and composers were trained in Nuremberg, but sought to further their careers in more northern regions, ending up with half-century tenures as Kapellmeisters in the middle German cities of Weissenfels and Zittau, respectively. The elder Krieger, who was ennobled in Vienna by Leopold I after hearing him play in 1675, soon concentrated on vocal sacred music, and only a handful of his keyboard music remains. His Passacaglia in D minor is clearly inspired by the work by Kerll of the same name. Johann Krieger on the other hand appears to be much more of a keyboard specialist. Towards the end of the century he managed to bring out two important, complementary keyboard collections printed in Nuremberg: the Sechs musicalische Partien (1697) and, two years later, the Anmuthige Clavier-Übung. The Sechs musicalische Partien was published without proper supervision by the composer, resulting in some confusion about the number of suites, but it is clear that the work indeed consists of six cycles grouped in ascending fashion: C major, D minor, F major, G major, A major and B♭ major. While the first three suites restrict themselves to the classic core of dances (the first one preceded by a lengthy fantasia), the last three are extended by “Galanterien” derived from the ballet suite.

That the “Liebhabern des Claviers” to which Krieger dedicated his Anmuthige Clavier-Übung encompassed both harpsichordists and organists is made clear by the nature of the two imposing final pieces: a big “ciacona” in G minor for (two-manual!) harpsichord and a toccata in C major for organ pedaliter. The three preceding single-standing free pieces seem destined for the organ too, but the rest of the collection, consisting of eight two-movement works, are true manualiter works for either harpsichord or organ. The printer again made a mess of it, often printing the prelude after the fugue or ricercare, and the order seems also otherwise to have been confused. Krieger, however, clearly intended a cycle spanning the eight most common keys. If one accepts that he would have started this learned collection in the primus tonus, the coherent cycle shown in Table 5.2 results.

As in the Musicalische Partien, the opening of the collection is now marked by a fantasia, while it climaxes in an imposing quadruple fugue of 203 bars. The latter work, which actually consists of four fugues, each treating its own theme before these are combined in a fifth fugue, was justly celebrated in its own day. The other fugues and ricercares, however, which are all monothematic and make extensive use of such learned devices as inversion and stretto, are equally demonstrative of Krieger’s contrapuntal skill. In conjunction with the varied character of the preludes and the fact that the pieces do no longer consist of (organ) miniatures, it is clear that this cycle forms an important predecessor of the Wohltemperiertes Clavier.

Southern Germany: Georg Muffat, Fischer

The Alsatian Georg Muffat (1653–1704) studied both French and Italian music in their principal havens: Paris and Rome. Therefore, like Froberger, Muffat was in the unique position to combine in his music the most important European trends of the day – personified by the names of Lully and Corelli respectively – which indeed informs his fine and influential music for strings. He became court organist in Salzburg in 1678, and finally Hofkapellmeister in Passau in 1690. The source situation with regard to his harpsichord music has notably improved recently through the reemergence of the Berlin Singakademie collection, which not only yielded a great number of unknown suites by Muffat’s son Gottlieb (see below), but also produced a manuscript (D-Bsak, SA 4581) with six harpsichord suites by Georg, three of which were hitherto completely unknown. The high expectations from his well-known music for strings or organ are amply satisfied, especially with regard to the rich invention displayed in the core dances, which are longer than usual (especially the courantes and sarabandes). Georg Muffat’s harpsichord masterpiece is, however, to be found in the Apparatus musico-organisticus from 1690. The main content of this seminal work consists of twelve organ toccatas to which he added three harpsichord pieces: a variation set (“Nova Cyclopeias Harmonica”), a short Ciacona in G major, and, most importantly, an extended Passacaglia in G minor. The latter abounds in fantastic harpsichord writing, consisting of an amalgam of Italian, German, and French elements – the latter above all visible in the fourfold recurrence of the arresting opening “theme” in the sense of a “passacaille en rondeau.” Such an appendix with harpsichord music is found more often in organ publications of the 1690s, such as the 1693 Ars magna consoni et dissoni by the Augsburg organist Johann Speth (i.e., three very Italianate arias with variations) or the 1696 Octi-tonium novum organicum by the Munich organist Franz Xaver Anton Murschhauser (i.e., four Christmas carols with variations and a suite).

The exceptionally long-lived Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer (1662–1746) represents something of an outsider here, since he does not fit in with the master–pupil–colleague matrix encountered with the other composers in this chapter. Born in the Bohemian city of Schlackenwerth, he was a lifetime Kapellmeister of the reigning house of Baden, moving in 1715 from his native town to the court of Rastatt in Baden itself. Fischer was equally at home in vocal and instrumental music, but, as a renowned keyboard virtuoso, it is not surprising that his keyboard music takes pride of place, appearing in no fewer than four publications. Two of those contain harpsichord suites: Les Pieces de clavessin from 1696 (reissued two years later as Musicalisches Blumen-Büschlein), and the Musicalischer Parnassus from 1738. As an experienced composer of orchestral suites in the French manner, a selection of which appeared as early as 1695, Fischer treats the tradition rather freely. Thus, both the innovative content and the high quality of the 1696 print explains his great reputation. The Parnassus collection, despite the huge time gap, hardly differs stylistically from the earlier collection, and thus appears rather conservative for its date. It even retains the use of the traditional short-octave C/E to c³ keyboard, already rather old-fashioned in 1696, suggesting that the Parnassus suites were composed long before their publication. In the earlier collection, the traditional core of dances is only present in Suites 1 (Allemande – Courante – Sarabande) and 6 (Allemande – Courante – Sarabande – Gigue); the others are either ballet suites (nos. 2, 3, 4, and 7) or single variation works (nos. 5 and 8). The ravishing Ciacona in G of the latter that concludes the volume stands out. A corresponding impressive Passacaglia in D minor comes at the end of the Parnassus. Despite the number of suites (nine) and title inscriptions with the names of the nine muses, it apparently bears no relation to Greek mythology. Only the first and last suites use the traditional core of Allemande – Courante – Sarabande – Gigue, the others usually restricting themselves to A–G plus a plethora of “Galanterien.” Specific mention should be made of the great variety of preludes prefacing all seventeen suites, some of them direct precursors of those in Bach’s Wohltemperiertes Clavier I.

Vienna [3]: Fux, Gottlieb Muffat

The longtime Hofkapellmeister at the Vienna court Johann Joseph Fux (1660–1741) was first and foremost a composer of vocal music, both sacred and secular, as well as of instrumental ensemble music. His keyboard music forms only a small niche in his enormous oeuvre, but what exists is of remarkable quality. In an anecdote transmitted by Marpurg, a harpsichord student of Gottlieb Muffat confessed that she was a greater lover of fine Fux suites than everything else, shunning the works of Kuhnau, Graupner, and even Handel.²⁰ Five such “Fuxpartien” have survived, along with some smaller fare as well as a Ciacona in D major, a large work which features an outstanding fusion of French and German manners. The suites indeed contain much fine music, and their varied style suggests a rather wide range of dates of origin. His keyboard masterpiece may be seen in a sixth “Suite” that, apparently because of its rather liberal makeup, was named “Capriccio.” It opens with an arpeggiated prelude familiar in Austrian harpsichord music since the works of Richter and others. This serves as the introduction to a six-movement symmetrical structure (Table 5.3).

Two tersely structured “absolute” movements – a fugue on a double subject and a finale of Handelian allure – frame a group of four character pieces, the outer of which are in related major keys (the parallel and the mediant respectively). At the same time, a steady alternation of fast and slow is utilized. Dance seems absent here, however, except for La superba (“the proud one”), a fierce courante. The complementing L’humilta (“the humble one”), with its constantly descending arpeggios and melodic patches, is a character piece in almost nineteenth-century pianistic mode, while the Arietta is a pure pièce de clavecin.

Rather surprising for the author of the celebrated counterpoint treatise Gradus ad Parnassum, traditional imitative forms like the ricercare and canzona are absent from his keyboard music. This lacuna was, however, amply filled by his most prominent pupil, the equally long-lived Gottlieb Muffat (1690–1770), who produced an enormous number of such pieces, along with a plethora of toccatas, capriccios, and preludes. Although much of this no doubt belongs to the domain of the organ, which is borne out by the many pieces with pedal, his collection of thirty-nine ricercares and nineteen canzonas – a clear sign of the composer’s conservatism and awareness of Viennese traditions, plus a retrospective nod to Frescobaldi – may very well be seen as harpsichord music too, particularly the lively canzonas. Also traditional is their notation in score format.

As the son of Georg Muffat, Gottlieb no doubt received a thorough early training in keyboard playing as well as composition. After the death of his father in 1704, Gottlieb left his native Passau for Vienna, becoming an organ scholar and pupil of Fux. In 1717, he became imperial court and chamber organist and was finally promoted to first imperial organist in 1741. Like Froberger, Gottlieb was a typical keyboard specialist, expressing hardly any compositional ambition beyond the harpsichord and the organ. He clearly was content to live and work outside the limelight of the opera and other more public genres. This is reminiscent of the second part of the career of his great contemporary Domenico Scarlatti, who then likewise wrote an enormous harpsichord oeuvre in the backrooms of an illustrious court. Moreover, both brought out a single seminal sampling of their work, which happened to appear almost simultaneously, in 1739. Indeed, Muffat’s Componimenti musicali per il cembalo can easily stand comparison with Scarlatti’s much more famous Essercizi per gravicembalo. The successor to a much smaller 1726 print with organ versets, Muffat spared no effort to make his publication a sumptuous one both in content and presentation: an intricate title engraving, extensive prefaces in both Italian and German, a generous table of ornaments, and the music done in beautiful and meticulous calligraphy.²¹ Its contents can be summarized as shown in Table 5.4.

Georg Friedrich Handel was greatly impressed by the Componenti musicali, of which he acquired a copy soon after its publication in 1739, raiding its musical ideas in the fall of that year for his Ode for St Cecilia’s Day and the Concerti Grossi, Op. 6, as well as other music in the following decade. Muffat, on his side, made complete transcriptions in 1736 of Handel’s Eight Suites (HWV 426–433) and Six Fugues (HWV605–610), adapting them to his own peculiar way of notating and ornamenting, while the Ciacona in G major that concludes the Componimenti seems modeled after Handel’s chaconne in the same key (HWV435, first published in 1735).

Handel’s admiration for the Componimenti is easy to understand: the music is inspired throughout, the workmanship is first-class, and many ideas are arresting indeed. It can be seen as a conservative publication in that Muffat retains the traditional core of four dances (Allemande – Courante – Sarabande – Gigue), though once replacing the sarabande by an air, and the gigue by a finale in two instances, while a more progressive element is found in the fact that the sarabande usually appears in the parallel key. Among the “Galanteriestücke” one always finds at least one minuet and often a rigaudon as well. The two French-titled character pieces (they are, in fact encountered throughout Muffat’s suites) reflect the strong French influence; indeed, the elegance of the music and its publication and its meticulous ornamental system reminds one of François Couperin’s Livres. Not surprisingly for the son of Georg Muffat, however, he strove for a synthesis of styles. Many of the courantes, for example, have a strong Italianate concertante slant to them. The fine contrapuntal finish everywhere could thus be seen as a “German” element. A feature that also strongly reminds one of Bach’s partitas, published about a decade earlier, concerns the introductory movements.²² Rather than using the short arpeggiated prelude here (which dominates the manuscript suites), Muffat developed more ambitious structures, obviously specifically for this publication, and varied them as much as possible. The only format repeated here is the ouverture, while the three fantasias become progressively longer, consisting of one, two, and three sections respectively. The last of these additional sections in fantasias IV and VI consist of two weighty four-part fugues, and together with the more fleeting fast fugues of the two ouvertures, Muffat is able to present a wide range of his expertise in this field.

As fine as the Componimenti suites are, it is important to emphasize that they form only a selection from a large corpus of such works. Prior to the year 2000, next to the six suites from the print, nineteen more were known from manuscript sources. However, the resurfacing of the collection of the Berlin Singakademie in that year yielded no fewer than twenty-five additional suites, thus doubling Muffat’s contribution to this field and, moreover, predominantly in the form of holograph manuscripts. However, no sources datable beyond ca. 1741 are to be found, suggesting that Gottlieb Muffat ceased to compose after that date. Perhaps his Componimenti was judged out of date as soon as it appeared, since indeed a new generation of keyboard composers specializing in the galant, generally less-demanding harpsichord style came to the fore with prints, such as those of Franz Anton Hugl, Franz Anton Maichelbeck, Raimund Wenzel Pirck, or Georg Christoph Wagenseil. The wholly new, much more bourgeois aesthetic they reflected was far removed from the courtly world inhabited by (Habsburg) “Kenner” as known by Muffat, and for which he wrote his quintessentially aristocratic harpsichord music.