The Froberger edition traverses nearly unknown territory now: How many people even know Froberger’s ricercars, the fourteen polyphonic works by no less than the most important German keyboard composer of the seventeenth century? Bob van Asperen offers a comprehensive survey of these works, played on the famous 1664 Hermans organ in Pistoia, Tuscany.
Bob van Asperen’s agile playing and the colorful sounds of the organ in historical temperament provide an optimal starting point for finally becoming more closely acquainted with this part of Froberger’s oeuvre. The old genre of the ricercar reaches one of its high points in Froberger, before finding its culmination in Bach’s Musical Offering.
In addition to the ricercars, to be heard for the first time is a group of three toccatas from the so-called Chigi Manuscript, which apparently dates from the time of Froberger’s studies with Frescobaldi.
AEOLUS’s recording technology literally transports the listener into the Church of the Holy Spirit (Spirito Santo) in Pistoia. This is naturally all the more so in the surround-sound version on the SACD.
