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Rebecca Cypess, ‘Memento mori Froberger?’ Locating the self in the passage of time, Early Music, Volume 40, Issue 1, February 2012, Pages 45–54, https://doi.org/10.1093/em/car121
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ON 23 October 1667, the Princess Sibylla of Württemberg composed a letter to Constantijn Huygens—one in a series of communications—reiterating the grief she felt on the death of her teacher, Johann Jacob Froberger, in May of that year. She wrote
As is well known, the ‘Memento mori Froberger’ that the princess mentions is the allemande of Suite XX (A20; FbWV620); the copy of this piece in the Froberger manuscript held by the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin (SA 4450) bears the inscription, ‘Meditation faite sur ma mort future, la quelle se joüe lentement avec discretion â Paris 1 May Anno 1660’ (Meditation made on my future death, which is played slowly with discretion; in Paris 1 May, in the year 1660), and another rubric at the end of the page reads simply, ‘Memento mori Froberger?’ (illus.1). These titles are confirmed in two other sources, including an autograph, although the Berlin manuscript is the only known source to record the date and location of composition.2From [your] letter, which pleased me very much, I gathered how greatly you lament with me the loss of my beloved, most worthy and honourable master and teacher, for whose hallowed death I, still, daily mourn from the bottom of my heart, when I consider what art and what technical command has died with him, and that I cannot further enjoy his continued teaching, which was my greatest pleasure … Would to God that I could be so fortunate as to be with you, Sir, since no one in my circles understands this noble art as you do. I should like to play for you the Memento mori Froberger as well as I can. Caspar Grieffgens, the organist at Cologne, also plays this piece, and learned it from [Froberger’s] hand, note by note. [The interpretation] is difficult to discover from the notation. [This remains true] even though the notation is clearly written and I have examined it with exceptional diligence. And I agree with Herr Grieffgen’s opinion that whoever has not learned the pieces from the late Herr Froberger himself, cannot possibly play them with true discretion, as he played them. May God Almighty grant that we music lovers may all delight ourselves mingling in the heavenly choir of the muses with him [Froberger]. Amen.1
