Chorale Preludes: BuxWv 177-224 (Dover Music for Organ)
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A major influence on Bachwho once walked 200 miles to ...)
A major influence on Bachwho once walked 200 miles to hear him performBuxtehude is among the great names in organ music and the study of counterpoint. Born five decades after Heinrich Schütz, the "father of German musicians," and a little less than half a century before Bach, he bridged the era between the founder of Protestant Baroque music and its greatest master. This collection of church chorales attests to Buxtehude's reputation as an outstanding composer of sacred vocal music.
For his texts, the composer drew upon scripture as well as church hymns and contemporary or medieval sacred poetry. Albert Schweitzer, in his famous biography of Bach, observed that Buxtehude's chorale preludes are "chorale fantasias of the most varied kinds, from the simplest to the most ingenious. In the simple ones the melody goes its way quietly, just embellished here and there with a few ornaments, and accompanied by interesting and always ingenious harmonies. . . . In the large chorale preludes, Buxtehude tears the melody in pieces, throws the fragments into the flood of a brilliant, animated fantasia."
Authoritative and modestly priced, this treasury of Buxtehude's works offers organists a source of endless satisfaction and inspiration.
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Perhaps the most important composer of organ music befo...)
Perhaps the most important composer of organ music before Bach, Dietrich Buxtehude (c. 16371707) was one of the most influential musicians in northern Europe. His brilliance as a performer is said to have inspired the young Johann Sebastian Bach to walk 200 miles from Arnstadt to Lübeck to hear his performances.
The most important of Buxtehude's instrumental compositions were for organ, and this volume presents virtually all of the composer's organ works 78 toccatas, preludes, chorale variations, chorale fantasias, chorale preludes, fugues, canzonettas, chaconnes, and other works reprinted directly from the definitive Breitkopf & Härtel edition by Philipp Spitta and Max Seiffert.
Professional and amateur organists, musicians, and music lovers will welcome the opportunity to study and perform these masterful compositions conveniently reprinted in this attractive, inexpensive, and authoritative edition.
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One of the great testimonials to the musicianship of Da...)
One of the great testimonials to the musicianship of Danish-born composer and organist Dietrich Buxtehude (16371707) is the frequently told story of the young Johann Sebastian Bach walking more than 200 miles to hear the great man play during one of his famous Abendmusiken concerts in Lübeck. It is widely believed that Bach was responsible for helping preserve Buxtehude's organ music, much of which he brought back with him from the north-German city. Today, Buxtehude's talents as a composer are especially evident in his remarkable instrumental music pieces that strongly influenced Bach, Bach's contemporaries, and later composers.
The present compilation comprises 19 keyboard suites, each consisting of four classic, extremely popular, stylized court dances: the allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue. Slight variations (such as a pair of sarabandes) are also included.
Selected from an authoritative early edition, these expressive, beautifully constructed pieces will appeal to a wide range of keyboard musicians and music lovers.
(Dietrich Buxtehude, (c. 1637--1707) was a German-Danish o...)
Dietrich Buxtehude, (c. 1637--1707) was a German-Danish organist and composer of the Baroque era. His style strongly influenced many composers, including Johann Sebastian Bach. This collection of keyboard works includes performance notes and information about the sources of these compositions. Includes 19 suites, 5 arias, 3 courantes and a Simphonie.
Dieterich Buxtehude was a Danish-German organist and composer of the Baroque period. His organ works represent a central part of the standard organ repertoire and are frequently performed at recitals and in church services.
Background
Buxtehude was born, probably in 1637, in Denmark. His biographer, André Pirro, gives Helsingborg as his birthplace, on strong evidence that his father, Hans Jensen Buxtehude (1602 - 1674), was organist of the Marienkirche in Helsingborg as late as 1642. Most other scholars believe he was born in Helsingör (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 earlie
Career
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; and through Franz Tunder, Buxtehude's immediate predecessor in Lübeck. Lubeck. On April 1, 1668, the church council of Lübeck offered Buxtehude the position of organist at the Marienkirche. He accepted, and remained in Lübeck 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 Lübeck; 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 Lübeck 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 Lübeck 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).