Johann Jakob Froberger

Born in Stuttgart in 1616 and died in Héricourt in 1667, Johann Jakob Froberger was a German composer, organist and harpsichordist of the early Baroque. He is documented from 1637 as organist at the imperial court in Vienna; on the orders of Emperor Ferdinand III he studied in Rome with Girolamo Frescobaldi and then travelled through Italy, the Netherlands, France and England. In his toccatas, ricercars, capriccios, fantasias and suites he joined Italian virtuosity, French dance and German counterpoint into a European idiom of his own. His keyboard music remained influential far beyond his time and is among the important preconditions for the development of the Baroque suite in the German-speaking lands.