DlETERlCH BUXTEHUDE and the Mean-Tone Organ volume

2 1 Canzona in Q PuxWV 171) 3 1 Praeludium in e (BuxWV 152) 4 - 1 Canzonetta in C (BuxW 167) 5 1 Nun ko-, der Heiden ~ & d (BUXWV 21 I) 6 1 Qelobet s e i a du, Jw Christ (BuxWV 189) 7 1 G e l o h seist du, Jem Christ (BuxWV 188) 8 I Nm bitten wir den Heiligen Geisr (BuxWv 209) 9 ( Praeludium in g ( B u x W 149)

I0 I Nun bitten wir den Heiligen Geist @uxW 208)

Auf meinen li&n Gott (BuxWV 179) 11 I AUemaade I2 I Double I3 I Sarabande I4 I Courant

I5 ] G*

I6 I Prdudiuming(BuxW163)

I7 I Wie schiin leuchtet urn der Morgemtern (BuxWV 223) I8 [ Prael.udiuminD(BuKWV139)

'Ibtal time CD I:

2 1 Ich ruf zu dir, err ~ e s u ~hrist (BuxWV 196) 3 1 hdudium in 0 (BwW 147) 4 1 Vater unser im Himmelreich (BuxW 21 9) 5 1 Praeludium in F (BmW 157)

Nimm von urn, Herr, du treuer Gott PuxW 207) 6 1 Vera I (Vater w e r im HimmehicB) 7 1 Vers 2 8 1 Vers 3 (Vater unuer im Himmeheich) 9 I Vers4

I0 I Praeludium in s ( B u x W I 53)

Te Deum k u k (BuxWV 21 8) 11 1 @...aim] I 2 I Primus versus, Te Deum l~udmus

13 1 Secundus Venus - Auf 2 Clavier, P h i sunt coeli et terra

I4 I Te Mamyrum, a 2 Clav. e Ped: 15 I Tu devicto, cum 3 subjectis

Tbtal time CD 2:

D ieterich Buxtehude (m. 1637.1707) is the earliest composer

w b d belong to the common repertoire of most organists. Although he J o left an impressive corpw of arias, sacred concertos, and cantatas for v0ice.s with instruments as well a nvo printed editions of sonam for strings, it i~ chiefly b i ~ o r p music that has captured the attention of performers h t h in hia dgr tlnd in our own. Jb Sebnatian Bath copied an o r g a n m k by hxtehllde even before he d a d nmth m ~700togto~chwlinLiineburgmmade b f u b l e d j o u r n e y b y f o o t h m ~ t w l i h c k i n 1705.

Buxtehude grew up in Helcsinger, Denmark, and aerved as o r e t in HeLsingborg (now in Sweden) and W i bfore accepthg one of the moat prertigiaw musical positiom in North Q c m I q that of f adst at st. Mm-y's

Church, Liibeck, in 1668. M g hjs nearlq forty years of service there he achieved famr not only as an organist but also as thr composer and director of a concert s e r k

known as the L&ck Abendmusiken. Hh organ music yappeals to modern listeners because it is full of the finmy, variety, and unpredict&ility that characterizes ssventeenth,century music, yet it is mosdy rooted in the major+minor tonal system familiar to wr e m .

Buxtehude's organ works fan into twa broad cawpries, those basd on c h o d melodh and h e f d y composed. He 8 d

many chomles ns short preludes, with a

highly ornamented melody to be played bj the right hand on one 4, a tmwvoicr mcomphent for s w a d manual, a d a

their unity of q I e , rhey show en variety in their ornamentation.

extensive chorale fanmias, on the other hand, develop ench p h a e of the chorale in a contrasting style. Buxtehude's free p&.&i%r praeludia are the wurka for which he is ha known-the most frequently copied in his day and mcwt often performed in ours. In them he demonstrated his virtuosity as both a composer and a

performer, fiwning one to three fugues with & 6-3 slection5, often incl* padal solos that q l o i t e d the imp pedal diviaion of the North German o r p .

The large organ that B d u d e pl+ in St. Mary's C h d , L i h k I i ~ y . f a u r atopa on mraurb

E l i i i E b BlmCeba2 a l l d ~ ~ ~ c

Diderich Buxtehude (1637-1707) was born in Denmark, and was active ve an organist, composer, and cultural

, entrepreneur in Denmark and Sweden as ' well as in Germany where he became

k n m ms Dieterich Buxtehude. His father, J o b (Hans) Bu~tehude, who d his Eareer as organist in Helsingborg but soon moved to HeIsi~tar, taught Dieterich

the foundations of organ pIaying and introduced him to J o h Lorenu, Jr., the famous organist at St. Nicolai in Copenhagen. It is possible that Dieterich studied with hrentz or that he was sent to Franz Tunder in Liibeck or Heinrich scheidemann or, perhaps, Matthias Weckmm in Hambung (dthough we have

no evidenm for this). In 1657, he &came

orgmist in St. Mary's church in

Helsingborg and, in 1660, he assumed the

same responsibility at St. Mary's in Helsingar. When Pranz l h d e r died on the 5 1 ~ of November 1667, the attractive position at St. Mary's in Liibeck became vacunt. In April of 1668, Buxtehude succeeded Tunder there and was formally appointed organist and Werkmeister. This prestigious position in the significant

Hanseatic League ci ty of f k Became

the primary arena for his activities as organist, composer, chief administrator, and culturd entrepreneur for the next forty years.

Buxtehude continued Tunder's concerts for the opening of the stock market, and further developd them into a series of "Abendmusiken" that occurred

after thevespers on the last two Sundays of

Trinity and the second, third, and fourth Sundays of Advent. These soon,famous

7 balconiw it could accommodate I about forty sjngers and mupjcians, : which presented an mazing visual

$ effect and d r magpihut P acousticsll and symbolic

& representation of the

I "Macrocosm," the music of the 1 heavenly choirs md the medieval

concept of the harmony o f the

spheres. The 1- e n a e d e I performed new music by I iuxtehude and other important ' composers in the Itaiian,Gerrman

concerto or multidchoral style. Like I .. Matthias Weckman with his

CoUeg6m Musktun in Hamburg ( 1 6 6 0 + 1 6 7 4 ) , Bnxtehude developed r significant forum for

I the perfo-ce of new music, previously re~arved for relatively

I created a new public function and demand for this new style of music in the core of the Hanseatic ci ty

T H E S P I R E S OF S'I: M A R Y ' S C H U R C H IN L#Q&CX culture. The many manwcript4 of this muaic, of central Gmmm to

'Abendmusiken" were d b z d from the i?candhmhn origin, bear w i ~ to the arge orgm. With its six surrounding AbendmusWs significant influence. The

I

collection is the largest b d y of organ, vocal and instrumental music of any musician active in Northern Europe in the seventeenth century. Trdy a musicw

perfectus, Buxtehude compoaed vocal, instrumental, and keyboard music of all cawpries, and in his music we find such a variety of styles and genres that we must inevitably rrpproach his work from a gaeral cdtural perspective; the organ music, in prti&, must be viewed through the lens of che monumental organs of the cities of the Hanseatic L e a p .

Buxtehude's Orpa Music and Its Context

The large city organs were important symbols of the pmprity and power of the free Hansehc cities, but they were also symbols of the presenm of the Macrocosm in the d d y life of the citizens. The organs were a symbol of the congregation and of Christian life as a whole, and even the Creation itself, all of which can be seen in

their allegorical use as a subject for sermons and other writings of the period. In the qame vein, the organs' pure major thirds of l-he triads stood as metaphors for the Holy

l k i t y . The Trinitw Harnaonica was an integral part of this concept, and made meamtone temperament irreplaceable. The Orgum P l e m could also be seen as a representation of the harmony of the heavenly choirs. During the seventeenth century, orpnbuilders also began to develop the wncept that the organ should encompass all musical instruments in itself. Organbuilders like Esaias Compenius, Gottfried Fritzsche, and Riederich Stellwwn developed new stops that resembled the somds of the humanurnanscale world of music, called Mwica Mu&, an acoustical microcosm, creaihg an almost infinite number of choices of conaort* registrations. In Buxtehude's organ music, and in the city organs, the seventeenth, century Northern European concepts o f the sacred and the secular, the Macrocosm and the Microcosm, come together, juxtaposing and often integrating new and old perspectives.

Buxtehude's free works comprise all the forms that were part of che To-xata tradition according to J o b Mattheson: "lntonazioni, Arpggi, senza e con battuta, Arioso, Adagio, Pass*, Fugbe, Fantasie,

5 beyond the confines of the instrument case. These

; visual sculptures have an

" aural correspondence in the d i n forms and figurations that Monged to the 'Ibccata tradition: mimicking all of the personalities represented by typical actors of a Baroque drama, the organist could render characters with different musicd Affekts using the broad r q md variety of combinations of registers.

In Buxtehude's chorale fanmias, the organ case became an eluborute

' I - Y P I C A L S'TA'TI-AHP Oh' A ACHXi' l~<j l iR ORCjA,\' pulpit for a musical exegesis from the heavenly organist

Ciacone, Capricci b c." The mugels and che himself; in the North German tradition, the statue of King David on the Liibcck Dom organist was sometimes called the "organ organ, as well as the e labordy carved preacher." In the small+scale organ chorales, wings on the sides of the tavm and where words were spe&cdy and directly the Riickpositiv, created the illusion that the related to tones, a miniature style developed organ is a Barcque s w s e r , extending the reflecting the aesthetic preference for arias instrument into the space of the church from the new French Opera and

modern ones generaced by the Enlightenment. Toward the end of his career, B d u d e must have admired the large new organ of this kind built by Schnitger for the L&ck Dom (1699).

pietistic songs of everyday life. The organ became the voice of the individual urgmist reflecting on one of the hymn verses through a simple musical meditation.

Buxtehude m d the Meamtone Organ What did Buxtehude experience and

what music was generated when he visited these large new organs of his time? In 1687, he visited Hamburg, where he ~layed the largest organ Schnitger ever built, the four.

manual organ at Nicholai. He prob&ly also played the second four.manua1 organ that Schnitger built a few yews later in the Jacobi church. The encounter between a superb musician m d a high+qudity insmment of the same culture generates an unpredictable and exciting interaction and symbiosis. Some of Buxtehude's compositional language patterns were probably enhanced and new ideas must certainly have developed in these encounten.

Although the size md chmacter of these instruments vuriwl, they all &red the same temperament, mean-tone cempernmenc, which generates colorful

I Buxtehude's chorale works compriae all catqpries from elaborated chorale fantasia to simple organ chorales, a prismatic reflection of the focal point of swenteenth, century sacred music: the hymn. Ram W e r and Buxtehude both inregrad these hymns in their cantatw and sacred concercos. In the tonal design of his instruments, Arp Schnitger prwided powerful, and fundamentd reeds for the bass, and l ~ , brilliant mixtures that were required for the accompaniment of congregaeional singing. Now d voices of the citizens were not only able but to sing with the church choirs, instrumentalists, md the heavenly choira in the h y m n s and songs in their own native language. These monumen*rmaterial and non+m~terial artifacts, music and instrumentwitnessed the advent of a nwv, dynamic and somewhat mannered style; r xtyle that reflected the gradual mancipation from medieval ways to

tension through constant c o n t r a s t b e t w e e n d i s s o n a n c e and c o n s o n a n c e , a n d relaxation through the harmony of the pure

major thirds in all c o m m o n chords , reflecting the heavenly harmony. Meamtone

! temperament i4 prohbb ' the single most important

factor for the sound, and f o r t h e succes s fu l presentation of affect and contrast in this music. The purpose' of this recording project is to

explore the encounter between Buxtehude's

organ music and the North German Baroque Organ in drgryte nya kyrka in QGteborg, the +t fow,manual organ in Schnitger style built in

our time and the only four. - manual instrument in this

style, mtique or d e r n , tuned in qumrter, comma meanstone temperament. In this first recording of the complete organ works on a

large mean+tone organ, the known information about performance prmtice has been applied, but the encounter with the music and the instrument inevitably generated new perspectives, and led to an expansion of the frame for performance decisions and called for new aspects of "orcheseation" and rhetorical rendering.

Although it would have been fascinating to Bhare the experienoe of the audience when Bmehude played the Schnitger organs, the purpose of this reconling is to create an interpretation of his music in our time, based on the s m e cul turd pmrns that g e n e r d Buxtehude's organ art. In the liner notes, I aim to clarify what the objective and subjective aspects of this process were. The unique and superb quality of the ULSI recording technique, mastered by the recording engineer and ULSI invenmr, Erik Sikkema, was a signifimnt reason for this project. The ULSI technique makes it pomible to experience the color and character of the whole frequency spectra of organsound with an actual sense of the m m

md the location of the s o u n d m g sources.

The Organ Works and Mean-tone Temperament

Buxtehude's organ landscape was in

quarterscomma mean tone. Modification of mean tone, either systematical or of practical nature with compromise now, w, if md when applied, an exception to the general practice. Because of the sustained nature of the organ sound and the expectaion of stark contrast between consonance and dimonance, the meanstone

temperament with pure major thirds was

preferred. It was a prerequisite for pure harmonic intonation in ensemble music, in which the large organs were frequently used as continuo instruments, and, despite contemporary theoretical discwiom to the

contrary, it was timecomumhg and cost, prohibitive to apply new temperaments to

these large o r p m Thus, it is clear that Buxtehude's musical language developed within the realm of mean-tone temperament and that id& temperament was standard when he played the organs. Nevertheless, it is a fact that a few of Buxtehude'a Gee mgan works (BuxWV 141; B u x W 142;

BuxW 149: BuxW 151) are h d l y play.able in the kqrs in which thy are preserved. Indeed, the free work of E minor, A minor, and G minor k 1 y benefit from the a c e s 4 to ad- or &flat instead of an *flat or gshasp (or instead of submitones, compromise nous for vfht and g.sharp). There are d wwp for the

performer t o diminish the harshnew of impure harmony and/or dissonance, for example to shorten the length of dissonant notes or to add ormmmts that hide them, or to adjust the registration from fuller registrations, for example, &nghg from a

Pkw r e @ i t o a Prk ipd by itself. However, the discrepancy bet- the

temperament and a portion of the preserved works presenm a problem that seems to be hard to solve. The n o t a d versions may have been considered merely music for the eyes, or perbps plmyed on stringed keyboard instruments that more easily could be retuned. It WM also foreign to the Barque

era that a work of music existed as an

absolute work in a completed form and carried with it the expectation that all notes should be possible to render exactly the way t h y are notated. The fact is that no organ works are preserved in autographs, and many compositions appear in somwhkt different versions in different muscripts. It is even documented tbat piaces surviving in keys like F-sharp minor were given u, students to practice transposition.

We probably ought to take the Baroque approach to this question: thae the notated versions represent different versions of a work as a concept in evolution, and that it was p h a p never meant to be mmpleted and final in a modern sense, but

rather continuously developing and o p for adjustments generated by the context and practical conditions. For this recording project, I have caken this approach, md

searched various ways t o play the

problematic works on a meansume o r p In mast cases, 1. decided to play the works in the keys given in the manuscripts, and, mostly, with the use of the suhsemitones (d, sharp, =flat and a-sharp), and in a few cases

I trrtnspased the compositions to suitable keys. h terms of the different readings of the d p t s , I have generally fallowed Michael Belorti's editorial recommendations in the Broude edition, but in a few cases I have developed my own a d j m e n t s .

The Italian Sty4e and Buxtehade'a M d e m Dsama

In 1855, Muttim Wedanan unanimously appointed city organist in St.

Jacobi in Hamburg. The employment not only brought a highly qudified organist to Hamburg, but also, and perhaps more importantly, a musician who had m a s t e d

the new ltalian and "emotional" style of

vocal and instrumend music and c a d

estublblish and educate a Collegium Musinun to perform a1 the contemporary music in the city. Although Weckman, who had worked with m orchestra o f Italian musicians in Dresden and who had learned

the Italian keybowd style directly fimn the Viennese and Imperial court organist, Jh Jakob Roberger, was the first city organist in the north to integrate tbe new

language in the music d t u r e , tbe Italian style was studied and do+ everywhere. Buxtehude continued this development with the "Abenmusw' at St. M q ' s in Liibeck .

In 1706, Martin Heinrich F u h r m compared Buxtehude's toccatas with those of Frescobaldi, and he stated: "thus, this

German Italianizes and; indeed he runs many miles ahead." Indeed, in Buxtehude's toccatas and free works we encounter an

unparalleled North European and h e , Baroque equivalent to the mmster w o r b of Frescobaldi. The fact that the earliest source of his work-emanating from Dresden (today known as the E.B. Cdexor Lowell Mason Cdex at Yale Universiq, New Haven)lncludes a rather large number of his works among significant pieces by, for m m p l e , Frescobddi (incorrectly attributed to Poglietti), Pasquhi, k l l , and Pachelbel, shows that already mt this time these composirionr were known and recognized as masterpieces of the Italian,German keyboard genre. In th is project, I have carefully tried to identify the Italian style in Buxtehude's free works and explored various ways to render them, for example in accordance with Frescobaldi's performme recommendmiom.

The purpose of the secconda

prattico-the Madrigal style and its

k e y M representation, the toccata-was to render musical representations of human emotions, called Afekts. The only

representarive of this new style that was accqxed in the fmme of t h e liturgy was the " e l d o n toccata," which used elements of the hem e l i v style to present the Afikt of suffering and death, and in this context

the death of Christ on the Cross.

I During the 8econd.half of the seventeenth century, the

rendering of Afihts became m

increasmgly important musical element, and opera music became

i the new musical form. J o b Kuhnuu's "Biblisthe Sonaten" were cremted with the purpose of providing keyboardists with examples and exercises of A f f e h music. The connection to a d* known biblical drum or ather

literary references ~rovided the inspiration for the projection of Afftkts, wbich in the case of c Kuhnau's "Sonaten" even

resented u drama and a

complete storyline. Battles and

R.HR.L RL'II,'I, # , I - .V,!KYm.r ( ' H I ' R C H !A IS 'THE pwtorA me per' elCBrn~les

'J .4 l . I .E.S' l~ N A l l ' b S'I Kt -C ' I ( ' R E I\.. h . O K . I H C R A ' P I ' H I I I b I I d caWg0riel of Aff& IIUIS~C.

natural philwophy, integral e lmmt.softhep*of& German Baroque, were problematic to apply in andysk and perfommm. In this project, ~btr i edtoaddth i sdhemion to the process and in the performnnoe searched for a

rhetorical wing of the con- A$ah that can be detected in the multi~sectional form, and rendered with

d constamt chrrnge of m i d h o n , touch, s h y , flow m d direction, mostly hardly noticeable, s o m d d r b nndperhy

Althou&storieaandimapofvariowh& were only occasionally defined and h c d e d , a successful performance was

a l w g s e x p e c o e d u , p r o j e t t d c ~ A#&.

During the twentieth century, the main focus on Baroque music wns on structure, polyphony and other abstract

qualirim and the aspects of rhetoric and

regismation and - sound, evokes and unleashes in the pfonner a new degree of sensitivity to the inherent expressiviq of the texture, that irresistibly demanda attention and influemm rhetoricd &aping and musid thing. A beighnd aense of presence and umnection to the s d k enhanced by the somewhat unpredidle behavior of the flow of air provided from

treatlmg the hi lopis , s h q d through t h e ~ t i v e a c t i o n a n d ~ t o the dyrmmcdy~balanced pipea of the North German Baroque Organ in Giiteborg. In this way, the encouuter of ~ m t e h d e ' s organ music and the meam trme orgau in dqp-yte- nys kyrka w d y d~~ and inspirational, and t h e ~ ~ f ~ r e c o ~ i s t o s h a r e that living experience.

- H ~ ~ s D ~ v m s s o ~

Extensive additionaf articles about this performance, including notes on each piece, are available at:

1 www.gothiocatalql.com

Buxtehude's Free Organ Works Buxtehude's Organ Chwale Works Registration and sound - the mutichoral and concerto style Complete listing of all registrations used

1 Search for LRCD-1090-91.

T he h t i f i c reconstruction of a large North German Baroque city organ from around I700 wm the

aim of a unique organ research project which started in I989 and ended with the haupration of the organ in August 2000. Arp Schnitger (1648-17191, the most fmnm organbudder of his time, dominated the orpmbui la i , m f t in North Germany during the latter p t of the seventeenth and Lanced by government research century and at the beginning of the sthidim, funds from mrious research eighteenth century, malung Schnitger's foundatiom, a d h a t and foremost A t h e immuments the logical models to be studied Bank o f Sweden W t e n a r y Fhdarion

I for the new organ. The new o r p has 54 as well Svenska Handelsbaaken. stops on four manuals and pedal, and waa built in the organ research workshop at GStehrg University, where all organ r e s d activities have merged into t h e

e Gteborg Organ Art Center ( G o ~ r t ) . The A complete description of the project was carried out in collaboration organ can be found at with Chdmers Unimity of l l c h a o l ~ , ww.gothi~-cat8Iog.com

T H F A R T I S T

A ppointed to the f d t y of the Eastman School of Music in Jmuary 2001, Ham Davidsson is

also p e r a l artistic and research director of the Gijteborg (Sweden) Organ Art Center (OOArt), the leading intemmional center for interdisciplinary research in historical performance practice and instrument building founded by Dr. Davidsson in 1995. Since 2002, Dr. - i D a v i h n is the project director of the Easanan.Rochester Organ Initiative -

@ ~ ~ ~ ) h b m i u ~ t o c m e e ~ ~ ~ o b d e organ fmility and center for the organ art

in Rochester, NY. An active performer and *

stholm and a leading m&wity on early the Loft label include f i e Complete Organ organ~music performance, he has given Worh of Matthius Wechmn&RCD 1065. recitals, maste&ses, and lectures at many 67); French Symphonic Mmterpkccs venues on both sides of the Adantic and hss (LRCD 1054): md The Eustman Italican performed at prestigioua festivds Baroque Organ (LRCD 1077) with worldwide. Davidmon's other recordings on colleagues David H e and Wdliam Porter.

Executive producer R a p W. Sherman

Recording engineer Erik Sikkema

Tuning and technical asshtmce Munetaka Yokota

&xklet editor English editing .

Jennifer Fanning Joel Speerara

Cover design C h M m h e n 1 Barbara Sherman

Booklet design Organ photao Dominic AZ BonuoceIli Ulf &lander

Regkmta and bellows madem Lukas Ardamn, Daniel J b o n ,

'Zbmmy Jomon, Liudda Komiwinskaya, Siri Lemardz, Vladimir Masko, Jacob we& R%eorded A u p t 28 - September 2,2006

This recordmg asd the booklet are @ d8 b~ Loft Remrdmp, LLC, 2007.

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