" Early years in Stuttgart, Prima pratica"

1.Johann Jakob Froberger was baptized on 19 May 1616 in Stuttgart. The exact date of his birth is unknown. His family came from Halle, where his grandfather Simon lived[2] and his father Basilius (1575–1637) was born. In 1599 Basilius moved to Stuttgart and became a tenor in the Württemberg court chapel. At some point before 1605 he married Anna Schmid (1577–1637), who came from a Schwab family living in Stuttgart. By the time Johann Jakob was born, his father's career was already flourishing, and in 1621 Basilius became court Kapellmeister. Of his eleven children with Anna, four became musicians (Johann Jakob, Johann Christoph, Johann Georg and Isaac; all but Johann Jakob served at the Württemberg court in Stuttgart[3]), and so it is likely that Johann Jakob received his first music lessons from his father.

Although the Thirty Years' War which started in 1618 undoubtedly made life in Stuttgart somewhat more difficult, the city's musical life was rich and varied, influenced by musicians from all over Europe, so already at the very beginning of his life Froberger must have been exposed to a wide variety of musical traditions. Little is known about his actual education, though. His teachers possibly included Johann Ulrich Steigleder, and he might have met Samuel Scheidt during the latter's visit to Stuttgart in 1627; it is possible that Froberger sang in the court chapel, but there is no direct evidence to that; and court archives indicate that one of the English lutenists employed by the court, Andrew Borell, taught lute to one of Basilius Froberger's sons in 1621-22[2] - it is not known whether this son was Johann Jakob, but if so, it would explain his later interest in French lute music.

Basilius Froberger's music library probably also helped in Johann Jakob's education. It contained more than a hundred volumes of music, including works by Josquin des Prez,[4] Samuel Scheidt and Michael Praetorius, as well as pieces by the lesser known Johann Staden, founder of the Nuremberg school, and Giovanni Valentini, the then-famous Viennese Kappelmeister who later taught Johann Kaspar Kerll.

2.Prima pratica  refers to early Baroque music which looks more to the style of Palestrina, or the style codified by Gioseffo Zarlino, than to more "modern" styles. It is contrasted with seconda pratica music. (Synonymous terms are stile antico and stile moderno, respectively.) The term prima pratica was first used during the conflict between Giovanni Artusi and Claudio Monteverdi about the new musical style.[1]

At first, prima pratica referred only to the style of approaching and leaving dissonances. In his Seconda parte dell'Artusi (1603), Giovanni Artusi writes about the new style of dissonances, referring specifically to the practice of not properly preparing dissonances (see Counterpoint), and rising after a flattened note or descending after a sharpened note. In another book, his L'Artusi, overo Delle imperfettioni della moderna musica (1600) ("The Artusi, or imperfections of modern music") Artusi had also attacked Monteverdi specifically, using examples from his madrigal "Cruda Amarilli" to discredit the new style.[1]

Monteverdi responded in a preface to his fifth book of madrigals, and his brother Giulio Cesare Monteverdi responded in Scherzi Musicale (1607) to Artusi's attacks on Monteverdi's music, advancing the view that the old music subordinated text to music, whereas in the new music the text dominated the music. Old rules of counterpoint could be broken in service of the text. According to Giulio Cesare, these concepts were a hearkening back to ancient Greek musical practice.




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