The Purcell Quartet Chandos Recordings Collection

Although written for the configuration of two violins and continuo, Dietrich Buxtehude's Seven Sonatas, Op. 1, are not trio sonatas in the usual sense. They refer back to the older type of Italian ensemble sonata, with contrasting short sections following in rapid succession rather than the three- or four-movement sonata or dance suite types. Buxtehude came at the end of this tradition, which by 1694, when these sonatas were first published, was beginning to give way to newer Italian types in points further south. He treated the form in the free, rather fantastic style that was his trademark, emphasizing sudden shifts and using the full range of formal devices available to him; the music may, for example, break into an unexpected fugue.

With this disc the Purcell Quartet completes a traversal of the trio sonatas (or “suonate,” to use the title on this disc) of Dietrich Buxtehude for violin, viola da gamba, and harpsichord. For unknown reasons, the op. 2 set has received far fewer recordings than has the op. 1, this being only the third in the active catalog. (As for how a quartet plays trios, the answer is that the two violinists take turns; Read more sonata da camera and sonata da chiesa of the high Baroque. Instead, within a compass of about 10 minutes, there are anywhere from five to 14 distinct sections within one sonata,

Although written for the configuration of two violins and continuo, Dietrich Buxtehude's Seven Sonatas, Op. 1, are not trio sonatas in the usual sense. They refer back to the older type of Italian ensemble sonata, with contrasting short sections following in rapid succession rather than the three- or four-movement sonata or dance suite types. Buxtehude came at the end of this tradition, which by 1694, when these sonatas were first published, was beginning to give way to newer Italian types in points further south.

By the end of his life, the fame of Dietrich Buxtehude as an organist was so great that in 1706 the young J.S. Bach took four weeks’ leave from his employment at Arnstadt and travelled on foot over 200 miles to Lübeck to hear him perform in concert. Ironically, the meteoric rise of the career of Bach himself as a composer meant that, until very recently, Buxtehude was primarily known simply as a forerunner to the great man, when in fact he was a major composer in his own right.