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Dieterich Buxtehude

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The only surviving portrait of Buxtehude, from a 1674 painting by Johannes Voorhout.
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The only surviving portrait of Buxtehude, from a 1674 painting by Johannes Voorhout.

Dieterich Buxtehude (Dietrich, Diderich) (ca. 1637–May 9, 1707) was a German-Danish organist and a highly regarded composer of the Baroque period. His organ works comprise a central part of the standard organ repertoire and are frequently performed at recitals and church services. He wrote in a wide variety of vocal and instrumental idioms, and his style strongly influenced many composers, including Johann Sebastian Bach. Organist at the Marienkirche in Lübeck for most of his life, Buxtehude is considered today to be the leading German composer in the time between Heinrich Schütz and Bach.

Contents

Life

Early years in Denmark

He was born with the name Diderik Buxtehude. Scholars dispute both the year and country of his birth, although most now accept it taking place in 1637 in Helsingborg, Skåne, at the time part of Denmark. His obituary, in the 1707 Nova literaria Maris Balthici, stated that "he recognized Denmark as his native country, whence he came to our region; he lived about 70 years". Others, however, claim that he was born at Oldesloe in the Duchy of Holstein, (now Germany), which at that time was a part of the Danish Monarchy. Later in his life he Germanized his name and began signing documents Dieterich Buxtehude.

Lübeck: Marienkirche

He was an organist, first in Helsingborg (1657-1658), then at Elsinore (1660-1668), and last from 1668 at the Marienkirche in Lübeck. His post in the free Imperial city of Lübeck afforded him considerable latitude in his musical career and his autonomy was a model for the careers of later Baroque masters such as George Frideric Handel, Johann Mattheson, Georg Philipp Telemann and Johann Sebastian Bach. In 1673 he organized a series of evening musical performances known as Abendmusik, which attracted musicians from diverse parts and remained a feature of the church until 1810. In 1705, Bach traveled 200 miles on foot from Arnstadt to hear the Abendmusik, meet the pre-eminent Lübeck organist, and hear him play. Buxtehude was old, and ready to retire, by the time he met both Bach and Handel. He was deeply impressed by the skills of both men to the extent that he offered his position in Lübeck to both Bach and Handel. But a condition of the post was that the organist who ascended to it must marry his eldest daughter, Anna Margareta. Both Bach and Handel turned the offer down.

Works

General introduction

The bulk of Buxtehude's oeuvre consists of vocal music, which covers a wide variety of styles, and organ works, which concentrate mostly on chorale settings and large-scale sectional forms. Chamber music constitutes a minor part of the surviving output, although the only works Buxtehude published during his lifetime were fourteen chamber sonatas. Unfortunately, many of Buxtehude's compositions have been lost. The librettos for his oratorios, for example, survive, but none of their scores do, which is particularly unfortunate, because his German oratorios seem to be the model for later works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Philipp Telemann.

Gustaf Düben's collection and the so-called Lubeck tablature A373 are the two most important sources for Buxtehude's vocal music. The former includes several autographs, both in German organ tablature and in score. Both collections were probably created during Buxtehude's lifetime and with his permission. Copies made by miscellaneous composers are the only extant sources for the organ works: chorale settings are mostly transmitted in copies by Johann Gottfried Walther, while Gottfried Lindemann's and others' copies concentrate on free works. Johann Christoph Bach's manuscript is particularly important, as it includes the three known ostinato works and the famous Prelude and Chaconne in C major, BuxWV 137. Although Buxtehude himself most probably wrote in organ tablature, the majority of the copies are in standard staff notation.

Buxtehude's music is catalogued according to Georg Karstädt's Buxtehude-Werke-Verzeichnis, a catalogue first published in the 1970s. It contains 275 individual pieces and an additional 13 in the supplement; individual pieces are referred to using BuxWV numbers from the catalogue. See List of compositions by Dieterich Buxtehude for details.

Keyboard works

Preludes

The preludes form the core of Buxtehude's work and are ultimately considered his most important contributions to music literature of the 17th century. They are sectional compositions that alternate between free improvisatory sections and strict contrapuntal parts, usually fugues. Although this latter principle harks back to Frescobaldi's toccatas, Buxtehude's works are much more strict than any toccata of the time. The preludes are quite varied style- and structure-wise and therefore hard to categorize: from the majestic BuxWV 137 and BuxWV 148 (both include a full-fledged chaconne along with fugal and toccata-like writing in other sections) to pieces with multiple diverse parts like BuxWV 141 (two fugues, sections of imitative counterpoint and parts with chordal writing) and compositions with just two relatively short sections like BuxWV 144 (a brief improvisatory prelude followed by a longer fugue). Sections may be explicitly separated in the score or flow one into another, one ending and another beginning in the same bar.

The improvisatory sections (which the preludes invariably begin with) may employ a vast array of techniques, from contrapuntal writing (including brief imitative parts based on a single motif) to various forms of non-motivic interaction between voices (arpeggios, chordal style, etc.). Distinct features include the use of staccato chords (in quarter or eighth notes) and parallel counterpoint. The fugues are usually in four voices; their subjects are generally simple, reminiscent of Froberger's canzonas. Some notable exceptions are present, however: for instance, the subject of BuxWV 148 is entirely based on note repetition; a fugue in BuxWV 142 employes a chromatic subject reminiscent of numerous organ ricercares of the era but written out in quarter notes (rather than the more typical half notes). Buxtehude's subjects rarely exceed two bars in length; the six bar subject of a fugue in BuxWV 145 is one of the very few exceptions. The fugues themselves are series of expositions with little or no episodic material and virtually no modulation to other keys (as this is fulfilled by the free sections of the prelude): generally only scale degrees 1 and 5 (tonic and dominant) are used and most of the answers are tonal. Fugue subjects of a particular prelude may be related as in Froberger's and Frescobaldi's ricercars and canzonas.

Chorale settings

Almost all Buxtehude's chorale settings fall into three distinct types: chorale preludes, chorale fantasias and chorale variations. The chorale preludes are usually four-part cantus firmus settings of one stanza of the chorale; the melody is presented in an elaborately ornamented version in the upper voice, the three lower parts engage in some form of counterpoint (not neccessarily imitative). Most of Buxtehude's chorale settings are in this form. Here is an example from chorale Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott BuxWV 184:
Opening bars of Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott BuxWV 184. The ornamented chorale in the upper voice is highlighted, original melody for the two lines present here is shown on separate staves. Note the basic imitative lines in bars 6-8 and 13-15.
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Opening bars of Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott BuxWV 184. The ornamented chorale in the upper voice is highlighted, original melody for the two lines present here is shown on separate staves. Note the basic imitative lines in bars 6-8 and 13-15.

The chorale fantasias (a modern term) are large-scale virtuosic sectional compositions that cover a whole strophe of the text and are somewhat similar to chorale concertos in their treatment of the text: each verse is developed separately, allowing for technically and emotionally contrasting sections within one composition. The presence of contrasting textures makes these pieces reminiscent of Buxtehude's preludes. Each section is closely related to the text of the corresponding lines (chromatic sections to express sadness, gigue fugues to express joy, etc.). Examples include Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ BuxWV 188, Nun freut euch, lieben Christen g'mein BuxWV 210, Nun lob, mein Seel, den Herren BuxWV 213 and Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, BuxWV 223. Buxtehude's chorale variations are usually in three or two voices. They consist of around 3-4 variations of which only one may use the pedal. These pieces are not as important for the development of the form and not as advanced as as Pachelbel's or Böhm's contributions to the genre.

The pieces that do not fall into any of the three types are Auf meinen lieben Gott BuxWV 179, which is, quite unusually for the time, a dance suite based on the chorale, and the ones based on the chant (Magnificats BuxWV 203-5 and Te Deum laudamus, BuxWV 218), which are structurally similar to chorale fantasias.

Other keyboard works

The three ostinato bass works Buxtehude composed–two chaconnes and a passacaglia–not only represent, with Pachelbel's six organ chaconnes, a shift from the traditional chaconne style, but are also the first truly developed north German contributions to the development of the genre. They are among Buxtehude's most well known works and have influenced numerous composers after him, most notably Bach and Brahms. A few keyboard canzonas are the only strictly contrapuntal pieces in Buxtehude's oeuvre and were probably composed with teaching purposes in mind. Of the three pieces labelled fugues only the first, BuxWV 174, is a real fugue; BuxWV 175 is more of a canzona (two sections, both fugal and on the same subject) while BuxWV 176 is more like a typical Buxtehude prelude, only beginning with a fugue rather than an improvised section.

The harpsichord suites almost invariably follow the standard model, sometimes excluding a movement and sometimes adding a second sarabande or a couple of doubles. Like Froberger's, all dances except the gigues employ the French lute style brisé, sarabandes and courantes frequently being variations on the allemande. The gigues employ basic imitative counterpoint but never go as far as the gigue fugues in the chorale fantasias or the fugal writing seen in organ preludes. Several sets of arias with variations are, surprisingly, much more developed than the organ chorale variations; BuxWV 250 may have inspired Bach's Goldberg Variations (both sets have thirty two variations and a number of similarities in the structure of individual movements).

Recordings

Media

References

The most comprehensive life-and-works study of Buxtehude; this book is considered to be the definitive biography by most musicologists. Contains an extensive, valuable bibliography. Written for both the casual reader as well as the serious scholar.
  • ____. "Buxtehude, Dieterich", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001), iv, 695-710.
    • Per usual for articles in The New Grove, this one contains a bibliography, a complete works and sources list, and a concise but informative summary of Buxtehude's life and works.
  • Gorman, Sharon Lee. Rhetoric and Affect in the Organ Praeludia of Dieterich Buxtehude (1637-1707). Stanford University, diss., 1990.
    • An in-depth study of the presence of rhetorical argument in Buxtehude's music.
  • Archbold, Lawrence. Style and Structure in the Praeludia of Dietrich Buxtehude. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1985. ISBN 0835716465.
    • Analysis of Buxtehude's organ praeludia; a significant study.
  • Dietrich Buxtehude und die Europaische Musik Seiner Zeit. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1990. ISBN 3761809948. ()
    • A collection of essays on a wide variety of topics concerning Buxtehude.
  • Belotti, Michael. Die freien Orgelwerke Dieterich Buxtehudes. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1995. ISBN 3631485344. ()
    • A study of the sources of Buxtehude's free organ works, along with a suggested chronology.

    External links

     

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