Buxtehude

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.

Des styles italiens novateurs comme l'opéra et l'oratorio, tous deux ayant pour base les mêmes concepts rhétoriques, se sont répandus très rapidement à travers toute l'Europe et c'est dans les régions de langue allemande que les modèles furent développés avec le plus d'ardeur. Le programme de ce CD Sanctum Desiderium est une soigneuse sélection de compositions allemandes du dix-septième siècle qui expriment un désir sacré en le traduisant aussi par des images musicales.

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.

Sigiswald Kuijken directed these performers, based notionally in Trondheim, for a festival concert in Sarrebourg in 2015. Like other takes on the great corpus of Bach cantatas by groups who are attempting to show us his works in a wider context, this pair is presented in the wider context of the musical expression of the final conflict between the forces of good and evil in the late 17th century. Buxtehude’s cantata Befiehl dem Engel, dass er komm (BuxWV10) and Christian Geist’s Quis hostis in cœlis provide the context for Bach’s compositions for Michaelmas in 1724 and 1726.

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…

This is a selection of outstanding examples of Buxtehude’s vocal and instrumental music. Settings of Latin biblical texts and ariosa-style works based on German hymns, alternate with instrumental sonatas. The recording has been given a special “North German” colouring through the use of a wide range of historical wind instruments such as the Baroque trombone and dulcian.

Buxtehude’s anthology and some of the most beautiful pages of North German repertory.

The music of Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707) has been described as 'a lot like J. S. Bach's, only less so.' Indeed, Buxtehude was probably the most important single influence on Bach, who is said to have walked more than 200 kilometres, at the age of 15, to hear Buxtehude play the organ. The similarity in their organ compositions is unmistakable, though Bach's are ultimately more complex and subtler in their counterpoint. Nevertheless, anyone who loves Bach's organ music will find this recording a real pleasure. Volker Ellenberger plays the grand-sounding organ of the Evangelical Lutheran City Church in Buckberg with a sure feel for the composer's language and aesthetic. The chorale preludes are particularly engaging and played with special sensitivity.

Ton Koopman is not only one of the great fathers of the Baroque-Renaissance revival in the 1970’s, but a true pioneer of our time. After completing the Bach Cantatas survey, was he awarded the Bach Prize 2014 by the Royal Academy of Music. The prize is awarded to outstanding individuals in the performance and scholarship of Bach’s music and none could be more worthy than Koopman, who has been noted as doing ”remarkable work promoting Bach’s music in the last thirty or so years.”

Cantatas for an evening's music. Buxtehude's major contribution to mid-baroque German sacred music lay in the Abendmusiken, the evening concerts organized before Christmas by the organist of Lübeck outside the context of his official duties. While most contemporary cantors had to produce a cantata a week, Buxtehude placed his genius in the service of works of the highest artistic demands. Here are some of the most dazzling examples.