A four-stave transcription of Froberger’s Ricercar, FbWV 412: why play contrapuntal music from open score notation?

This edition of the Ricercar, FbWV 412 by Johann Jacob Froberger (1616–1667) gives keyboard players a tool with which to experience reading music from open score — a practice generally neglected today. This skill, also known as partitura, was a prerequisite of seventeenth-century keyboard fugue performance. The practice began in Naples with Rocco Rodio's Libro di ricercate, a 4 (1575), and widely adopted across Europe until beyond the time of J.S. Bach, The author's transcription of FbWV 412 is edited from the Seconda Parte of Froberger’s Libro Quarto of 1656 (A-Wn Mus. Hs. 18707, fols. 53v–56v.) is typeset in open score notation with modern treble and bass clefs to assist players who wish to perform this music from a visual presentation similar to that of Froberger's autograph but which does not require fluency in C-clefs. The transcription is accompanied by a brief performance commentary