It has been shown that piezoelectric materials can be used as passive electromechanical vibration absorbers by shunting them with electrical networks. Semi-active piezoelectric absorbers have also been proposed for suppressing harmonic excitations with varying frequency. However, these semi-active devices have limitations that restrict their practical applications. The approach presented here is a high performance active-passive alternative to semi-active absorbers. By utilizing a combination of a passive electrical circuit and active control actions, the system is synthesized for adaptive variable frequency narrowband disturbance rejection. The active control consists of three parts: an inductor tuning action, a negative resistance action, and a coupling enhancement action. In the current paper (Part 1), the control algorithm is developed and analyzed. Part 2 of the paper contains experimental investigations and parametric studies of the new absorber design.