Dieterich Buxtehude - Biography
Dietrich Buxtehude who along with Heinrich Schutz is the major pre Bach German composer was born probably in 1637 in Helsingborg which was then part of Denmark and died in Lubeck on May 9TH 1707.His father was himself a fame organist in Holstein which was then part of Denmark. Not much is known about Buxtehude’s early life. He emerges in historical record in 1657as an organist in Helisingborg and was soon to move in 1660 to the town of Elsinore in Denmark of Hamlet fame where he would remain as organist for eight years. He was to become in 1668 and for the balance of his life the organist at Marienkirche in the historically prominent North German city of Lubeck. As was the custom he married his predecessor at Lubeck Franz Tunder’s daughter(when Buxtehude was ready to retire Handel who was twenty two was offered the Lubeck position, but turned it down because he was not interested in marrying Buxtehude’s daughter). Buxtehude was to become the most preeminent German musician of his time and prominent musicians and musical connoisseurs came from all over Germany to hear Buxtehude conduct his choral works and hear him in Marienkirche perform and improvise on the organ. There is a story that Bach relayed to his son that when he was twenty he walked 250 miles from his home in Arnstedt to Lubeck to hear Buxtehude perform in 1705. Buxtehude died in 1707 and we surmise his year of birth by the obituary notices listing him as seventy. Much of his music particularly the organ music would have been lost if younger composers like the famed Composer/Musicologist Johann Gottfried Walther and Johann Christian Bach had not copied it from Buxtehude’s manuscripts.
Buxtehude wrote a massive amount of vocal and choral music, we have many Cantatas both secular and sacred that have survived but unfortunately his full scale oratorios have not survived. Many of Buxtehude’s works were auctioned to various collectors in the early Eighteenth Century and all trace of them has been lost. His keyboard works particularly for Organ has given Buxtehude the bulk of his fame. His Organ Preludes, Chorales and Chorale Fantasias are particularly impressive. He also composed nineteen Harpsichord Suites which must have served as models for both Bach and Handel.
Buxtehude’s music has had pioneering recording in the fifties and sixties from E. Power Biggs on Columbia and Walter Kraft on Vox of the Organ works. But by far the most important recording project has been the multi volume series by Ton Koopman on the Omina label of the Choral, Vocal, Organ and Keyboard works. If you are impressed by Bach and want to explore a composer of similar gravity and mastery try Buxtehude.
