Buxtehude

Denmark composer and organist Dietreich Buxtehude (1637-1707) was a man of broad culture (his hometown Latin school was one of the most prestigious of his times and he came from an highly educated family). His astonishing musical style is mixing bravery and consistency in an alternation between sharp architectures and oasis of peacefulness. Buxtehude’s music is a clear portrait of his times, connecting Sweelinck’s Dutch style with Weckmann’s Italian taste.

For this recording of music by Buxtehude, Jonathan Cohen, founder of the ensemble Arcangelo, is joined by a distinguished trio, including two regulars on the Alpha label, Sophie Gent and Thomas Dunford, alongside the gambist Jonathan Manson. Although Dietrich Buxtehude is famous above all for his organ music and cantatas, and for the long journey the young Bach undertook to meet him, his chamber music is virtually unknown. In the mid-1690s, at the height of his fame, Buxtehude published two collections in rapid succession, each comprising seven sonatas for violin, viola da gamba and basso continuo.

St. Thomas, dating back to the twelfth century, is a musical landmark for the city of Leipzig, in which renowned composers like Gustav Mahler, Richard Wagner and Felix Mendelsson Bartholdy worked. Johann Sebastian Bach was the Thomaskantor here from 1723 to 1750, the world-famous Thomanerchor sings motets here every Saturday, and here resounds the wonderful music played on the instrument Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart once declared the "Queen of Instruments" and about which the poet Honore de Balzac said, "The organ is without a doubt the greatest, boldest and most magnificent of all instruments. It is an entire orchestra form which a skilled hand can demand everything." St. Thomas houses not one but two organs wtihin its walls. In 1889 Wilhelm Sauer built the organ, named after him, in the west choir loft. On the north gallery, the Bach Organ has stoody since 2000. The Sauer Organ has over 88 stops, and the Bach Organ, whose facade is adorned with the seal of the famous Thomakantor, has 61 stops. "Soli Deo Gloria" - Glory to God alone - is the motto by which Bach wrote his music.

The logical continuation of the series “Organ Works of the North German Baroque,” recorded by Friedhelm Flamme, is the works of Dietrich Buxtehude, the most important master of North German organ music. In order to underscore the features of his personal style of interpretation, which is the result of decades of study of virtually the entire repertoire of North German music, the incredible and mostly intact original Treutmann organ in the Grauhof monastery near Goslar was selected. This organ can produce Buxtehude’s innovative, visionary sound artistry in a very different way than the well-known Schnitger organs in northern Germany.