Glen Wilson - Johann Jacob Froberger: 23 Suites for Harpsichord, Tombeau & Lamentation (2016)

Froberger was one of the most humane composers of the 17th century, and it would be a cold player indeed who did not respond to the searching expressiveness not only of his allemande-form meditations and lamentations, but of many other movements as well. Wilson does not fail them. A pupil of Leonhardt (himself a great Froberger player), he seeks a similar ‘delicate balance of freedom and rigour’, resulting in deeply considered interpretations, never hurried or frivolous, but with each note given proper placing and weight. The effect might seem at times to toy with ponderousness, but given full attention it can draw you into the rhetorical moment and hold you there in anticipation of the next. If the gigues are slow compared to a more free-spirited player’s idea of them, Froberger’s writing is certainly strong enough to take it, and different beauties can emerge. And nobody could accuse Wilson’s final track, the wondrous ‘Lamentation for Ferdinand III’, of lacking in free-flowing, wrenching emotion.

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