Dietrich Buxtehude

From Freepedia

Diderik Hansen Buxtehude (ca. 1637–May 9, 1707) was an organist and composer of the Baroque period. Not only the year, but also the country of his birth is uncertain and disputed. Since he spent his early years in Helsingborg in Skåne, at the time part of Denmark, he is by some considered a Danish composer. Others, however, claim that he was born at Oldesloe in the Duchy of Holstein, (now Germany), which at that time was a part of the Danish Monarchy. Later in his life he Germanized his name, his new name being Dietrich Buxtehude.

He was organist, first in Helsingborg (1657-1658), then at Elsinore (1660-1668), and last from 1668 at the Marienkirche in Lübeck. His post in the free Imperial city of Lübeck afforded him considerable latitude in his musical career and his autonomy was a model for the careers of later Baroque masters such as George Frideric Handel, Johann Mattheson, Georg Philipp Telemann and Johann Sebastian Bach. In 1705, Bach traveled 200 miles, on foot from Arnstadt to meet the pre-eminent Lübeck organist and hear him play.

Unfortunately, many of Buxtehude's musical works have been lost. The librettos for his oratorios, for example, survive, but none of their scores have survived, which is particularly unfortunate, because his German oratorios seem to be the model for later works by Bach and Telemann. Bach's collection of seminal works preserved some of Buxtehude's organ masterpieces, though, and the publication of two volumes of Buxtehude's chamber sonatas during his lifetime facilitated their transmission through the years. Additionally, a number of his cantatas, also used by other composers as models, have survived.

Buxtehude's surviving organ works are part of the standard organ repertoire and are heard at recitals and during worship services. Buxtehude is believed to have written in an early form of notation called organ tablature that is unrelated to modern notation. These manuscripts are all lost, leaving early transcriptions to standard notation as the best available sources.

Recordings

Organ works, Harald Vogel
Organ works, Peter Hurford
Organ works, Rene Sarogin
Cantatas, Jos van Immerseel
Membra Jesu Nostri, Cycle of seven cantatas, The Monteverdi Choir, The English Baroque Soloists, Fretwork, John Eliot Gardiner, Archiv Produktion 447 298-2
Geistliche Kantaten (Sacred cantatas), Cantus Cölln, Konrad Junghänel, Harmonia Mundi France HMC 901629
Membra Jesu Nostri, Ton Koopman, Erato 2292-45295-2