Background
Diderik was born in 1637 in Denmark.
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Diderik Buxtenude
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also known as
Dietrich
Career
Most other scholars believe he was born in Helsingor (the Elsinore of Shakespeare's Hamlet), where his father was organist at the Olai Kirche for many years. In either event, Buxtehude was Danish by birth, as both cities were then in Denmark, though Helsingborg later became Swedish. It is also possible that the Buxtehude family had emigrated from Germany several generations earlier.
Like all German musicians of his generation, Buxtehude was strongly influenced by the Dutch organist-composer, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, whose style had been in turn a synthesis of Flemish and Italian influences, notably those of Girolamo Frescobaldi and Gioseffe Zarlino. A few of Buxtehude's vocal compositions have Italian words, and the Italian style occasionally appears strongly in other works.
The German influence on Buxtehude was, of course, more direct. It came through his father, who was his first teacher; through Johann Theile, who had been a pupil of the great composer Heinrich Schütz;Schutz; and through Franz Tunder, Buxtehude's immediate predecessor in Lübeck.Lubeck.
On Apr. 1, 1668, the church council of Lubeck offered Buxtehude the position of organist at the Marienkirche. He accepted, and remained in Lubeck until his death on May 9, 1707. Here Buxtehude occupied one of the finest musical posts in Europe. Tunder had found it difficult to support his family on the organist's salary, and in 1647 added to his duties the post of Werckmeister, or overseer of the properties of the church. Buxtehude retained this double function. Another peculiarity of the position was the tradition that the incoming organist should marry the eldest eligible daughter of the retiring organist. Buxtehude consequently became the son-in-law of Tunder by marrying his daughter Anna Margaretha upon his arrival in Lubeck; by her he had seven children. In his later years Buxtehude found it difficult to retire; a number of organists, including Bach, G. F. Handel, and Johann Mattheson, appear to have declined the post of Lubeck organist because of the requirement of marrying Buxtehude's eldest daughter.
Buxtehude's greatest fame came through his performances in the Abendmusiken, a series of Advent concerts, to which people came from throughout Europe. Many of his organ pieces and choral cantatas were composed for these musicales. To hear the Abendmusiken the young Johann Sebastian Bach walked many miles to Lubeck in 1705.
Though Buxtehude composed violin sonatas, secular vocal music, harpsichord pieces, cantatas, and other sacred choral works, it was his organ music that was most original and had the greatest influence on his followers. His style is bold and imaginative, highly personal, often virtuosic. Freely modulating improvisatory sections, considered excessive by some scholars, alternate with fugal developments.
Buxtehude's vocal music is collected in Dietrich Buxtehude Werke (seven vols., Kelcken, 1925-1937); his harpsichord works are published in Klavervaerker D. Buxtehude (Copenhagen, 1942); while his organ works, in four volumes, are gathered in Dietrich Buxtehude Saemtliche Orgelwerke (Copenhagen, 1952). His life and works may be studied in Andre Pirro's Dietrich Buxtehude (Paris, 1913) and in Dietrich Buxtehude: The Man, His Music, His Era, by Farley K. Hutchins (1955).
