Recitals of keyboard music by this great seventeenth-century virtuoso are always welcomed with open arms and ears in this household, and doubly so when executed with the technical skill and strength of character demonstrated here by Christophe Rousset. Froberger travelled widely: South German by birth, he worked for much of his life in Vienna, studied with Frescobaldi in Rome and later visited Italy again, taking in the Netherlands, France and England. Rousset's programme is made up of Toccatas, Suites and two outstandingly expressive tributes in the 'tombeau' tradition. One of them was prompted by the death in Paris of the gifted bass viol player, Blancrocher; the other is a deeply felt Lamentation for Froberger's musically gifted employer, Emperor Ferdinand III. Its full title, its choice of key—F minor—and an unmistakable strain of personal sadness testify to a warm rapport which must have existed between the two men.
The Italian influence on Froberger's music is present above all in the toccatas and contrapuntally orientated pieces. The suites, on the other hand, owe more to the arpeggiated figuration of the French lute school which were taken over by mid-seventeenth-century French harpsichord composers such as Chambonnieres and Louis Couperin. I had expected Rousset to be more at home with these than the toccatas but this is not in fact so. The toccatas are interpreted with vigour, a comfortable stylistic assurance and a supple rhythmic pulse which acknowledges the improvisatory character of the music. Froberger's later suites generally consist of a four-movement scheme of allemande, gigue, courante and sarabande in that order; but some 30 years after his death an Amsterdam publisher issued further suites of his in which the gigue takes its more conventional place at the end of the sequence. One of these is included in Rousset's recital, beginning with the affecting Plainte faite a Londres pour passer la Melancholie. Gustav Leonhardt in his recently issued Froberger recital (DHM (CD) GD77923) also includes this suite but follows the composer's practice of playing the gigue after the allemande. Rousset has previously shown, above all in his Rameau playing, how engagingly he can inject dance measures with kinetic energy. In the present case he succeeds equally well, bringing gracefulness of gesture and balletic poise to the music.
Although there are some duplications between this recital and Leonhardt's programme the discs are mainly complementary since Leonhardt further includes a canzona, a ricercar and a capriccio, thereby revealing wider dimensions in Froberger's style. My sensibilities respond more acutely to Leonhardt's elegiac inflexions in the Lamentation sur la mort de Ferdinand III than to Rousset's more forceful gestures. A warm welcome to the newcomer, which is brightly and, perhaps, a shade too closely balanced.'