Buxtehude reviews

‘Nothing is over-stated or under-nurtured; and Meunier always finds a deeply human dimension to Buxtehude’s piety that taps into the bürgerlich bonhomie of the sonatas. Rich, lively and truthful, the recorded sound consummates a seductively considered disc that pretty much never puts a foot wrong.’

Buxtehude

Abendmusiken: Cantatas BuxWV 10, 34, 41, 60 & 62; Sonatas BuxWV 255 & 261

Vox Luminis; Ensembles Masques/Lionel Meunier

Alpha Classics ALPHA 287   85:17 mins

‘The most free and unrestrained manner of composing… that one can imagine,’ wrote theorist Johann Mattheson of Dietrich Buxtehude’s 1692 Op. 1 Trio Sonatas. The Hamburgian combination of violin, obbligato viola da gamba, and harpsichord certainly gave the seasoned Marienkirche organist an opportunity to push the conventions of sonata writing for his Lübeck Abendmusiken audiences.

'Buxtehude's rapid-fire twist and turns are deftly handled by these musicians'

Buxtehude Trio Sonats, Op. 1

Arcangelo/Jonathan Cohen 

Alpha 367

Ton Koopman has a habit of turning endings into beginnings. When he and his Amsterdam forces completed their Bach cantata cycle they reassigned their completist gaze to Buxtehude, and since 2005 have been working their way through the ‘opera omnia’ to this final recording. Whatever follows, the Buxtehude project is arguably Koopman’s most important achievement: groundbreaking, ear-opening, comprehensive, scholarly, answering questions, raising others. But above all it’s sounded like a labour of love. And still the discoveries flow.

The seven vocal concertos which comprise Buxtehude’s meditative Membra Jesu Nostri are now as much part of the composer’s mainstream as his organ music. Indeed, during the past decade and more this poignant masterpiece has proved to be so appealing that some 20 versions have been recorded. This is the latest.

The previous release in Ton Koopman’s ongoing survey of Buxtehude’s complete surviving works tackled one of the Lubeck master’s best-known settings: the cantata cycle Membra Jesu Nostri. Now follows a double-disc set of relative rarities offering a tantalisingly varied snapshot of Buxtehude’s first two decades at the Hanseatic city’s Marienkirche. On no account be deterred by the prosaic title ‘Vocal Works 7’.

In the concert hall, Buxtehude’s Trio Sonatas are the undersung heroes of the Baroque chamber repertoire, receiving fewer performances than Corelli, Handel or JS Bach. That strikes me as baffling, given Buxtehude’s companiable inventiveness. Each Sonata is filled with incisive contrapuntal discourse, cheerful banter and soulful soliloquy. Happily, on disc they’ve been more handsomely served by the likes of Trio Sonnerie, as well as a dashing ensemble led by John Holloway (this latter, currently re-released on Naxos, an unassailable bargain).

Buxtehude dedicated his poignant cantata cycle Membra Jesu Nostri to his friend and patron Gustav Düben, in 1680. The seven cantatas, though musically autonomous, are linked by their Latin texts containing sections of the 13th-century poem Salve mundi salutare, and by their focal point which is the contemplation of seven parts of Christ’s body on the cross. Buxtehude creates rewarding contrasts by varying the colours
and the size of the ensembles.

Some of its pipes contemporary with Buxtehude, the Metzler organ of Trinity College Cambridge is a powerful ally in Herrick’s ongoing cycle, adding fire to his rigour and clear-sightedness. Paul Riley

 

Ton Koopman launched his chamber music journey into the ‘Complete Buxtehude’ with sonatas from unpublished sources. Now he has the magnificent Op. 1 in his sights, a collection of seven trio sonatas cocking a snook at the Italians by opting for viola da gamba rather than a second violin, and by casting them in the seamless multi-sectional single movements the North Germans went for, shot through with the vivid imaginings of the so-called ‘fantastic style’.

A very welcome reissue of Lionel Rogg’s classic Buxtehude survey. Bach’s great predecessor is played with rhythmic buoyancy and bright attack on a clutch of Swiss and Danish organs. John Allison

Five years into his all-embracing Buxtehude project, Ton Koopman has reached the chamber music. And if the title ‘sonatas from manuscript sources’ suggests he’s been clambering around dusty Danish libraries or sequestered in scholarly archives, in fact the music has long been published, ‘manuscript sources’ denoting the eight remaining (extant) sonatas not domiciled in the Opp. 1 & 2 sets Buxtehude published in the mid-1690s.

The unique foray by Buxtehude, north-German Lutheran, into the arch-mystical Catholic world of Latin contemplation of Christ’s body on the cross. Inspired music matched by intensely heart-felt one-to-a-part performance. George Pratt

With a new Buxtehude organ cycle in progress from Christopher Herrick (on Hyperion), and the ‘complete works’ recently under the belts of Ton Koopman (Challenge), Bine Bryndorf (Dacapo) and on a job-share Naxos disc, Masaaki Suzuki steps boldly into an organ loft buzzing with Buxtehudian industry.

Volume four of Ton Koopman’s survey of Buxtehude’s vocal music takes us further into seldom trodden territory. While German is by far the most frequently encountered language in Buxtehude’s work, there is a significant body of Latin texts, of which one is featured here, and even one in Swedish.

Christopher Herrick embarked on his Buxtehude pilgrimage in Helsingor where the young Dietrich honed his skills before succumbing to the organistic ‘bright lights’ of Lübeck. Vol. 2 decamps to Norway and the magnificent 1741 Wagner organ in Trondheim’s Nidaros Cathedral.