This remarkable recording marks the first relationship on disc between an ensemble and the label Opus Arte, until now known for DVDs of live opera, ballet and theatre. Its new partnership with the choir of Magdalen College, Oxford, one of Britain's oldest and finest choral institutions, begins with Buxtehude's sublimely tender 1680 meditation on the crucified Christ, Membra Jesu Nostri. In the future, we are promised works by the glorious John Sheppard, a 16th-centuryinformator choristarum at the college, and contemporary pieces from Matthew Martin, a former Magdalen scholar recently given a British Composer award.
Membra Jesu Nostri (The Limbs of our Lord Jesus) is the single largest and most compelling of the 110 or so sacred vocal works left us by Dutch-German master Dietrich Buxtehude. Buxtehude is better known for his organ music and is rightfully acknowledged as a formative influence on Johann Sebastian Bach. However, Buxtehude's vocal output is slightly larger than that for organ, and he was a key player in the refinement of the German sacred concerto into what we now call the sacred cantata, which he and his wife inherited from its creator and his predecessor, Franz Tunder, in the town of Lübeck. In the years following Buxtehude's death in 1707, German composers of all kinds were gainfully employed writing cantatas in the thousands, Georg Philipp Telemann produced nearly 2,000 of them on his own.
Jacobs has found the means of marrying intense religious fervour with highly ”personalised” expression. (…) The instrumental ensemble provides a commentary of indescribable poetry. (…) The coupling is also exceptionally interesting, with the jubilation of Heut triumphieret Gottes Sohn forming a superb contrast with the meditations of Membra Jesu nostri and offering an apotheosis in its concluding Alleluia.
In 1680, Dietrich Buxtehude sent his friend Gustav Düben the score of Membra Jesu nostri. In this perfectly balanced work, he addresses the senses directly, immersing us in the sufferings of Christ: we feel the hammer blows, the heart that stops beating…
Buxtehude’s cantata cycle, Membra Jesu Nostri, is a unique work. Based on texts from a medieval Latin hymn, ‘Salve mundi salutare’, the cycle contains seven cantatas each dedicated to a different part of Christ’s crucified body. The texts are based on the concept of an observer contemplating Christ’s body on the cross starting with his feet and moving up to his knees, hands, side, breast, heart and finally his head. Buxtehude plays cleverly with musical colours and textures and changes the mixture of voices and instruments to dramatic effect as the work develops.
Dieterich Buxtehude composed his Membra Jesu nostri in Lübeck in 1680, and the work, drenched in emotion in a most un-Bachian way, has become increasingly popular in the 21st century. The title might be translated "Limbs of Our Jesus," but actually the Latin texts, of considerable antiquity, describe seven wounds supposedly suffered by Jesus Christ on the cross, and the work thus falls into a group of works in which the number seven takes on mystical significance. Various interpretations have been offered, with the majority adopting the one-voice-per-part technique, sometimes in a severe way, sometimes carrying a feeling of intimate chamber reflection.
…Sopranos Emma Kirkby and Elin Manahan Thomas are excellent throughout…Harvey is a solid, dignified presence elsewhere as well, while tenor Charles Daniels and countertenor Michael Chance are at their eloquent best… Both The Purcell Quartet and Fretwork relish the variegated sonorities afforded by Buxtehude’s score, as well as the word painting, while blending with the voices to effect a homogenous yet multi-timbred sound of great beauty.
It is easy to imagine Dietrich Buxtehude’s enthusiasm when he received into his hands the text to Membra Jesu Nostri, which has been ascribed to Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1090-1153). The text forms an account of the crucified limbs of Christ (feet, knees, hands, side, chest, heart and face) and its sensitive style relates strongly to sixteenth and seventeenth century Pietism, the central focus of which is emotion and passionate expression.
Following on the heels of the practically definitive Cantus Cölln performance of Buxtehude's Membra Jesu Nostri, this Atma Classique disc featuring Les Voix Baroques – a sort of all-star assemblage of early music vocalists – has a tough row to hoe. The singing – as one might expect from talents such as Suzie LeBlanc and Catherine Webster – is indeed excellent throughout, but there remain two significant problems with this recording, the first being the thin and rather scrawny recording, not helped by what sounds like a rather bare-bones approach to continuo.
Dietrich Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu nostri is a large-scale Passion work dedicated to the Swedish chapelmaster, Gustav Dübin, in whose notable collection, now at Uppsala, it holds a prominent place.