Buxtehude in Lübeck: preludes, chaconnes and sonatas

About Dietrich Buxtehude

Buxtehude was probably born in Helsingborg in about 1637, then part of Denmark, the son of an organist. He followed his father into the profession, serving at Helsingborg from 1657 and at St Mary's in Helsingør from 1660, before taking the post at the Marienkirche in Lübeck in 1668. There he succeeded Franz Tunder and married Tunder's daughter Anna Margarethe, with whom he had seven daughters. From 1673 he ran the Abendmusik concerts, and in 1705 the twenty-year-old J. S. Bach walked from Arnstadt to hear him. He died in Lübeck on 9 May 1707.

The catalogue is organised around the BuxWV numbers established by Georg Karstädt. The instrumental side is well covered: the C major Prelude, BuxWV 137, opens with a pedal solo and ends with a chaconne; the C minor Chaconne, BuxWV 159, belongs with the passacaglia BuxWV 161 to the group of ostinato works that influenced Bach. The Op. 1 trio sonatas in the catalogue are BuxWV 252 to 255, with the B-flat sonata's closing ciaconna also filed separately.

Vocal music is thinner here, though the cantata Cantate Domino, BuxWV 12, is the most-viewed item, and the catalogue also holds a Romanian-text piece, 'Glorie dați lui Dumnezeu!'. Two entries carry La Capricciosa, BuxWV 250: the theme itself and the thirty-second variation. The labels 'professional production full score' are the uploader's, not an editorial claim. With everything at complexity index 0, the index cannot separate a two-minute chorale prelude from a ten-minute sonata.

Listening and playing notes

Buxtehude writes for the organ as a rhetorician: a free opening, a fugue, a sudden change of metre, then a closing flourish. Registration carries much of the structure, so plan it before you practise the notes. In the trio sonatas the two upper instruments argue as equals over a continuo bass, and the gamba sonata BuxWV 268 asks for a sustained, vocal tone rather than a showy solo. The chorale fantasia on Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, BuxWV 223, is the best single introduction to his sectional writing.

Selected scores

1. Cantate Domino Canticum Novum, BuxWV 12

   A Latin cantata on Psalm 96, and the most-viewed Buxtehude score in the catalogue.

2. Trio Sonata No. 1 in F Major, Op. 1, BuxWV 252

   The opening sonata of the published Op. 1 set, for two violins and continuo.

3. Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, BuxWV 223

   A chorale fantasia on the Philipp Nicolai hymn, one of the large sectional works for organ.

4. Sonata in D for Viola da Gamba, BuxWV 268

   One of the few surviving sonatas Buxtehude wrote for viola da gamba and continuo.

5. Chaconne in C Minor, BuxWV 159

   The first of Buxtehude's two organ chaconnes, built on a repeated bass that migrates through related keys.

6. La Capricciosa, Variation XXXII, BuxWV 250

   The thirty-second variation of a set in G major that may have been a model for Bach's Goldberg Variations.

7. Prelude in C Major, BuxWV 137

   Opens with a pedal solo and closes with a short chaconne, an unusual shape for a praeludium.

8. Ciaconna in B-flat Major (from Trio Sonata No. 4, BuxWV 255)

   The closing movement of the B-flat trio sonata, BuxWV 255, filed here as a separate piece.

9. Trio Sonata No. 3 in A Minor, Op. 1, BuxWV 254

   The A minor sonata from Op. 1, one of seven in the set.

10. Prelude in F Major, BuxWV 144

    A short improvisatory prelude followed by a longer fugue, the compact form of the praeludium.