Dietrich Buxtehude

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(b Hälsingburg or Oldesloe, c 1637; d Lübeck, 9 May 1707). Danish (or German) composer. His first studies were under his father, who held posts as organist in Hälsingburg and Helsingør (Elsinore), as did Buxtehude himself between c 1657 and 1668, when he became organist at the Marienkirche at Lübeck, one of the most important posts in north Germany; he was also appointed Werkmeister (general manager) of the church. Later that year he married Anna Margarethe Tunder, his predecessor's daughter. Besides his normal duties on Sundays and feast days, he reinstated the practice of giving Abendmusik concerts in the church on five Sunday afternoons each year. These events attracted much interest and drew J. S. Bach from Arnstadt in Advent 1705.

Surviving texts from the Abendmusik performances show that he composed a number of oratorio-like works, but none has survived. The bulk of his known sacred music consists of cantatas or sacred concertos, the latter often settings of psalm texts, consisting of contrasting sections in which each line of the text is treated with a new motif. He used a concertato style, for voices and continuo (sometimes with other instruments), in which the motifs are treated in dialogue in a manner related to the Venetian polychoral style; there are also arioso sections. Buxtehude wrote a number of chorale settings, commonly with the melody in the soprano but with instrumental accompaniment and interludes; in ensemble settings he used the chorale motet style, in the manner of a sacred concerto but with motifs from the chorale melody, and he also set chorales with the melody in one voice and instrumental counterpoints. His sacred arias are mostly in strophic or varied strophic form, with a fluent, sometimes Italianate melodic style. Some extended vocal works, akin to Bach's cantatas, combine movements in the sacred concerto style with others of the aria type.

Most of Buxtehude's instrumental music is for the organ: about half consists of freely composed music, often using a toccata-like section with several fugues and incorporating virtuoso passage-work, while half consists of chorale settings, some of the variation and fantasia types, but mostly highly unified settings of a single stanza of the chorale with a richly ornamented melody. He composed suites and other music for the harpsichord; his courantes are variations of the allemandes and the gigues are loosely fugal. French influence is noticeable. He also wrote several variation sets. The only works published in his lifetime were two collections each of seven sonatas, for violins, viola da gamba and harpsichord continuo (seven more sonatas survive in MS); they are closer to the German tradition of improvisatory viol playing than to the Corelli tradition, with movements in contrasting tempo and texture. They include ground bass movements and fugues, usually only in two parts as the viol part is not always independent of the bass. Especially in his sacred vocal works and his organ music, Buxtehude represents the climax of the 17th-century north German school, and he significantly influenced Bach.

works:
Vocal music

• over 100 sacred works: German and Latin concs., chorale settings, arias, cantatas etc
• 10 secular works

Organ music

• over 40 chorale settings (preludes, fantasias, variations)
• 2 chaconnes, passacaglia
• over 40 preludes, canzonas, toccatas, fugues

Other keyboard music

• 19 suites
• 6 variation sets incl. La Capricciosa

Chamber music

• 14 sonatas, 2 vn, va da gamba, hpd, op.1 (c 1694), 7 other sonatas

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The organ works and sacred vocal compositions of the Danish composer Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707) are the culmination of the North German school of composition in the 17th century.

Dietrich Buxtehude was born in either Holstein or Sweden (both were Danish territories at the time), the son of an organist. The family was of German extraction, and branches were located in various parts of Scandinavia, which had close cultural ties with Germany at the time. Buxtehude thus was exposed to the forms and styles typical of North German music.

Little is known of Buxtehude's early life, but he apparently received musical instruction from his father. He accepted positions as organist in 1657 at Helsingborg and in 1660 at Helsingör. On April 11, 1668, he succeeded the illustrious Franz Tunder to the prestigious post of organist at St. Mary's Church in Lübeck (marrying Tunder's daughter as one of the terms of succession) and remained in this post for the rest of his career.

Buxtehude was a truly inventive and imaginative composer in an era often marked by solid, workmanlike technique devoid of any profound inspiration. His extant works represent but a small portion of his production, and many of them exist only in secondary sources. Dating his work is close to impossible on any but stylistic grounds, and his flamboyant imagination led to a wide variety of stylistic treatment. Italian and South German music was known in his area, broadening the stock upon which he drew. With the growing emphasis of the time on individuality, he turned his back on authoritarian formulas and allowed his fiery imagination free rein.

Recent scholarship has shown that Buxtehude's sacred vocal works are, historically, his most important contribution, rather than the organ works as was previously thought. Few are liturgical. Most fall under the heading of cantata, if by this term one understands the earlier form as practiced by Tunder rather than the later genre represented by most of Johann Sebastian Bach's cantatas.

In 1673 Buxtehude established the famous Abendmusiken, or evening musicals, in St. Mary's; they took place from 4 to 5 P.M. on the five Sundays before Christmas. These performances included organ music as well as sacred works of a dramatic-allegorical nature for chorus, soloists, and orchestra; the bulk of the latter has disappeared.

Most of Buxtehude's 124 extant cantatas were probably written between 1676 and 1687. The solo portions exhibit operatic styles ranging from recitative to arias. There are also songlike pieces on lyric texts. Especially notable among the choral sections are the closing portions with closely imitative introductions, followed by fugal Alleluia or Amen sections. Throughout there is the strongest possible expression of the text content, achieved through the free exercise of musical fantasy. Buxtehude also wrote works based on melodies and texts of chorales (the traditional hymnody of Lutheranism), in some of which the melody is varied in each movement.

This wealth of expression made a profound impression on the young Johann Sebastian Bach, who in 1705 journeyed 200 miles on foot to hear Buxtehude's music and remained for 4 months. Thereafter Bach seems to have been determined to employ this expressive potential in church works.

Equally impressive for Bach must have been Buxtehude's organ music. Certainly the older composer comes closer than anyone else to Bach in the composition of the small-scale, subjective-interpretive chorale prelude (a free organ composition based on the melody of a Lutheran chorale, originally used to introduce congregational singing). This was a more southerly form. Buxtehude brought to its most advanced state the North German chorale fantasia, in which the chorale melody is so freely treated in a series of rhapsodic sections as to nearly disappear. For the most part his toccatas are in the then standard form, consisting of a sequence of diverse sections, including free fantasy, virtuoso pedal solos, and at least two fugues. Here, especially, his penchant for the daring and the unexpected comes strongly to the fore. There is also service music: Magnificats and Te Deums that could substitute for vocal performance and canzonas that were played during church services.

Undoubtedly a great deal of Buxtehude's keyboard and chamber music has been lost. The sonatas of 1696 cannot be his earliest attempts. His sonatas are somewhat retrospective, compared to the already-existing model of Arcangelo Corelli, and Buxtehude's keyboard suites follow the model of Johann Jakob Froberger. It is in the specifically North German forms that Buxtehude dominates and represents the climax of his era.

Further Reading

Buxtehude's importance is discussed in Manfred F. Bukofzer, Music in the Baroque Era: From Monteverdi to Bach (1947). Good background studies are Paul H. Lang, Music in Western Civilization (1941), and Donald J. Grout, A History of Western Music (1960).

Additional Sources

Snyder, Kerala J., Dietrich Buxtehude, organist in Lübeck, New York: Schirmer Books; London: Collier Macmillan, 1987.

Buxtehude, Dieterich (also spelled "Dietrich"; c. 1637–1707), considered one of the most important seventeenth-century German composers and organists between the time of Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672) and Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). Buxtehude was also the most highly respected church musician of his generation, and he contributed significantly to the development of middle baroque organ music. The exact place of Buxtehude's birth is unknown; he was probably born in Denmark, either in Helsingör (Elsinore) or Helsingborg (now part of Sweden), or else in Oldesloe, Germany.

At Skt. Olai Kirke in Helsingör, where his father worked (c. 1641–1671), Buxtehude studied organ and gained firsthand knowledge of organ building, and he probably also received formal musical training at the Latin school in Helsingör. By the age of twenty-five he was considered an expert in organ design and structure. It is possible that he continued his education in Copenhagen in the late 1650s. In late 1657 or early 1658 he accepted the position of organist at Skt. Maria Kirke in Helsingborg, where his father had previously worked, and remained there until 1660. From 1660 until 1668 he was employed at Sct. Mariae Kirke in Helsingör, after which he was appointed as organist, Werkmeister (church secretary and treasurer), and parish administrator at the Marienkirche in Lübeck, the most prestigious church-organ position in northern Germany and a post he held until his death. Shortly after moving to Lübeck, he married Anna Margarethe Tunder, the youngest daughter of his predecessor, Franz Tunder. They had seven children, four of whom survived until adulthood.

The city of Lübeck was not as adversely affected by the Thirty Years' War as was the rest of central Europe. It did, however, suffer financially, and the city fathers worked to rebuild the local economy. In spite of this hardship, Lübeck maintained an excellent and well-paid band of musicians in its employ. The city also had a reputation as an important center of string playing, especially viola da gamba (bass viol). Buxtehude wrote two sets of sonatas for violin, viola da gamba, and harpsichord continuo (Op. 1, c. 1694, and Op. 2, 1696). These virtuosic and melodic compositions—the only instrumental works published during his lifetime—reflect the high level of instrumental performance in Lübeck.

Apart from his duties of providing music for church services, Buxtehude oversaw an annual concert series, the Abendmusiken, which was held on five Sundays in Trinity and Advent. As the director of the series, he raised money, wrote music, hired musicians, and conducted performances. Under Buxtehude, the Abendmusik concerts usually featured oratorios (dramatic sacred operas) that he had written based on biblical texts and lyrical poetry and, occasionally, programs of various choral and solo vocal music, as well as instrumental music. The musical forces that performed at Abendmusik concerts were substantial. Buxtehude demonstrated his business acumen in his administration of this series: he kept the concerts free to the public by soliciting funds from local businesses. The series continued until 1810 in Lübeck and served as a model that was imitated throughout Europe.

Buxtehude's reputation as an organist and improviser extended outside of Lübeck. George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) visited him in Lübeck in 1703, and in 1705 J. S. Bach walked from Arnstadt to Lübeck, more than 200 miles, to hear him perform. It is also possible that Bach made the trip to inquire about obtaining Buxtehude's position at the Marienkirche, after learning about the organist's impending retirement. But to be awarded the contractual title of Werkmeister, a prospective applicant was required to marry the master's eldest daughter, a tradition that Buxtehude had followed thirty-seven years earlier but that did not appeal to Bach. When Buxtehude died in 1707, he was succeeded by Johann Christian Schieferdecker (1679–1732). Buxtehude was buried at the Marienkirche, next to his father and four daughters who had predeceased him.

Buxtehude's compositions encapsulate the seventeenth-century German baroque aesthetic. His instrumental works—especially the preludes for organ, with their dramatic rhapsodic passages, changing textures, and improvisational-sounding embellishments—make full use of the appropriately named stylus phantasticus, a freely improvisatory style favored by north German organists during that period, which Buxtehude often juxtaposed with short, contrasting sections of imitative counterpoint. His other keyboard works include canzonas, chorale settings, suites, and variation sets.

Although Buxtehude's position in Lübeck did not require him to write vocal music, he composed more works for voice than for keyboard or chamber ensemble. The two principal vocal genres he favored were the sacred concerto and the aria, both of which had been developed earlier in Germany by Michael Praetorius (1571–1621), Schütz, and others. Buxtehude's vocal concertos are set primarily to biblical texts in German and Latin, and the majority of the arias within these works have strophic texts. Many concertos begin with an instrumental movement and conclude with a highly structured "Alleluia" or "Amen." His other vocal works include chorale settings and cantatas, most of which are four-voice settings based on a preexisting Lutheran hymn tune.

With the renewed interest in early music in recent decades, as well as the attention given to his compositions by J. S. Bach, Handel, and other composers, Buxtehude has been assured a permanent place in the organ and vocal repertory.

Bibliography

Snyder, Kerala J. "Buxtehude, Dieterich." In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Edited by Stanley Sadie. 2nd ed. London, 2001.

——. Dieterich Buxtehude: Organist in Lübeck. New York, 1987.

Webber, Geoffrey. North German Church Music in the Age of Buxtehude. Oxford and New York, 1996.

—GREGORY MALDONADO

• Period: Baroque (1600-1749)
• Born: ca. 1637 in Helsingborg, Sweden
• Died: May 09, 1707 in Lübeck, Germany
• Genres: Chamber Music, Choral Music, Keyboard Music, Vocal Music

Biography

Dietrich Buxtehude is probably most familiar to modern classical music audiences as the man who inspired the young Johann Sebastian Bach to make a lengthy pilgrimage to Lubeck, Buxtehude's place of employment and residence for most of his life, just to hear Buxtehude play the organ. But Buxtehude was a major figure among German Baroque composers in his own right. Though we do not have copies of much of the work that most impressed his contemporaries, Buxtehude nonetheless left behind a body of vocal and instrumental music which is distinguished by its contrapuntal skill, devotional atmosphere, and raw intensity. He helped develop the form of the church cantata, later perfected by Bach, and he was just as famous a virtuoso on the organ.

No documentation exists for Buxtehude's birth, though he said late in life that he was a native Dane. Since his father, Johannes, was organist and schoolmaster at Oldesloe, Denmark, until 1638, it is a reasonable guess that Dietrich was born there. Johannes moved to Helsingborg in 1638 and to Helsingor in 1641 or 1642, where he stayed until 1671. After learning the organ at the feet of his father, Buxtehude became organist at his father's former church in Helsingor in 1657 or 1658; he then moved to a German-speaking congregation in Helsingborg in 1660. Buxtehude decided to stop following in his father's footsteps when the prestigious position of organist at the Marienkirche in Lubeck became available; after several others were rejected, Buxtehude got the job on April 11, 1668. He also married the outgoing organist's youngest daughter, Anna Margarethe Tunder, which may have been a condition of taking the post, and certainly was a condition when Buxtehude sought a replacement for himself. Buxtehude was organist at the Marienkirche for the rest of his life. His official duties were to provide congregational chorales and other musical interludes for every service, and to act as treasurer, secretary, and business manager of the church. He was most famous, however, for his Abendmusik concerts, held following the afternoon service on five Sundays a year and on special occasions. Although these concerts are universally described as extraordinary, and were the basis of most of Buxtehude's contemporary fame, very little music from them has survived. Two of the most famous Abendmusik concerts, held on December 2 and 3, 1705, and commemorating the death of Emperor Leopold I and the ascension of Joseph I, were probably attended by Bach on his pilgrimage. Buxtehude had an opportunity for early retirement in 1703, when Georg Friederic Handel and Johann Matheson (famous organists both) visited him; Matheson had been thinking of succeeding Buxtehude at his post, but balked at the requirement to marry Buxtehude's daughter Anna Margareta, and the visit came to nought. After Buxtehude died on May 9, 1707, the church found another organist willing to marry his daughter.

Historically, Buxtehude's organ music has been studied because of its direct influence on Bach; Buxtehude wrote the first truly idiomatic fugues for the organ and was one of the first to experiment with the structure that Bach later codified into the prelude and fugue. Buxtehude is generally considered the greatest organist between Scheidt and Bach and is regarded as the originator of the German organ toccata. However, in addition to the keyboard music that so impressed his contemporaries, he also wrote some extraordinary works for trios involving the viola da gamba. His vocal works shared the devotion and intellectual rigor of his instrumental work, and were also much admired. ~ Andrew Lindemann Malone, All Music Guide