Most of Johann Jakob Froberger's keyboard output carries all-purpose titles and movement headings. The works gathered on this disc, however, all bear elaborate subtitles having to do with melancholy and/or death. Would a listener be able to ascertain this through listening without benefit of booklet notes? I'm not so sure. Most of this music is florid rather than reflective in nature, and quivers with audacious dissonances. Frequent cross-relationships boldly and blissfully stand apart from modern notions of major and minor key tonal hierarchies. Wladyslaw Klosiewicz brings improvisatory flair to the restlessly imaginative F major and G major Toccatas, and is tuned into each of the Suite movement's specific dance attributes. The radiant, full-throated engineering is reproduced at a high level. Adjust your volume dial accordingly before you dig into this veritable feast of gems by one of the great masters of the Middle Baroque.

--Jed Distler