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Méditation faite sur ma mort future, la quelle se joue lentement avec discretion (FbWV 620)
“Méditation faite sur ma mort future, la quelle se joue lentement avec discrétion” (“Meditation on my future death, to be played slowly and with discretion”), together with the Tombeau de Monsieur Blancrocher (FbWV 632), is one of the summits of Baroque keyboard music as an expression of the awareness of death. It is also one of the earliest pieces in European history to state explicitly that its subject is a “meditation on one’s own death”: something unprecedented in its time.
This title appears in the manuscript of the Book of Empress Sibylla (1656), in which Froberger grouped several suites under autobiographical or spiritual titles. The title makes this more than a simple dance suite: it becomes a profoundly introspective work, almost a musical confession. The composer is not writing for courtly entertainment, but meditating on his own death, as though transforming the suite into a personal memento mori.
“Méditation faite sur ma mort future”
This is not a tombeau (like the Tombeau de Monsieur Blancrocher, dedicated to someone else), but a reflection on his own death. It expresses the Baroque ideas of inward contemplation and vanitas, in which music becomes a vehicle for considering the transience of life. Froberger appears as a mystic of the keyboard, and the suite becomes a sonic prayer.
“La quelle se joue lentement avec discrétion”
The instruction to play slowly and with discretion is highly unusual: it prescribes not only a tempo, but also a spiritual attitude towards performance. In the seventeenth century, “discrétion” implied moderation, inner wisdom and modesty—a way of playing that does not seek brilliance, but humbly reveals the meaning of time and death.
Froberger was one of the earliest composers who produced programmatic pieces, which he would usually include in his suites. These pieces are always very personal, written in an affective style and with individual titles. They include the following (in alphabetical order):
- Allemande, faite en passant le Rhin dans une barque en grand péril
- Lamentation faite sur la mort très douloureuse de Sa Majesté Impériale, Ferdinand le troisième (FbWV 633) (1657)
- Lamentation sur ce que j’ay été volé et se joüe à la discretion et encore mieux que les soldats m’ont traité (FbWV 614) (1656)
- Lamento sopra la dolorosa perdita della Real Maestà di Ferdinando IV Rè de Romani (FbWV 612) (1654)
- Méditation faite sur ma mort future, la quelle se joue lentement avec discretion (FbWV 620) (1660)
- Plainte faite à Londres pour passer la melancholie (FbWV 632)
- Tombeau fait à Paris sur la mort de Monsieur Blancrocher (FbWV 632) (1652)
These works frequently feature musical metaphors. The structure and style of Froberger’s programmatic works contributed to the development of the ‘unmeasured prelude’.
Louis Couperin, Georg Böhm, Dieterich Buxtehude, and Johann Pachelbel are among the composers who were influenced by Froberger. Various less known composers such as François Roberday or Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer also knew his music and borrowed from it. Johann Sebastian Bach was influenced by Froberger, although only to a certain degree. One of the fugues of the Well-Tempered Clavier uses a subject from Froberger’s Ricercar No. 4 (FbWV 404); however, Bach probably picked the theme from J.C.F. Fischer, who borrowed it from Froberger for his Ariadne musica, published some 20 years before the Well-Tempered Clavier.