Introduction

“Even today, four hundred years after his birth, Johann Jacob Froberger is still an engaging, astonishing and yet mysterious musician.”
So Yannick Varlet, French harpsichordist and organist who has always cultivated with great interest the Italian and German keyboard repertoire, expresses, in the accompanying notes to this CD, his deep admiration for the great German composer, whose fourth centenary of the birth is celebrated in 2016.
Froberger is also a forerunner of the kind of European musician, a great traveler who saw many of his works to be born outside Germany and that, at the same time, announced in Germany a new "German style", steeped in Italian and French characters.
The CD presents a wide and representative selection of the keyboard works of Froberger. Varlet performs such works partly on the harpsichord (a copy of an instrument of Thuringian origin) and partly on the organ (a French-made instrument, recently carefully restored).
Regarding the sources, Varlet uses mainly the Vienna autographs and, for some pieces, the Berlin manuscript.