Steering buxtehude biography

DIETERICH BUXTEHUDE

by Kerala J. Snyder, 2001, refinement of Oxford Music Online

(b ?Helsingborg, c1637; d Lübeck, May 9, 1707). Teutonic or Danish composer and organist. Noteworthy is best known as a designer of organ music, of which without fear was one of the most vital composers before J.S. Bach. He as well left equally impressive repertories of sanctified vocal and instrumental ensemble music.

No certificate exist to verify the date abstruse place of Buxtehude’s birth, and flush his nationality has been disputed. Grandeur only contemporary information comes from pure notice (in Nova literaria Maris Balthici) shortly after his death: ‘he formal Denmark as his native country, whence he came to our region; fair enough lived about 70 years’. Although jurisdiction family must originally have come deprive the town of Buxtehude, south-west healthy Hamburg, his ancestors had settled popular Oldesloe (now Bad Oldesloe) in goodness Duchy of Holstein early in loftiness 16th century. His father, Johannes (1601/2–74), migrated from Oldesloe to the Norse province of Scania; his presence more as organist of the St Mare Kyrka in Helsingborg is documented recognize the value of the year 1641. The hypothesis forwardlooking by Pedersen and by Stahl (1951) that he could be identified professional a German schoolmaster named Johannes, existent in Oldesloe in 1638, and wind Dieterich was therefore born in Oldesloe, appears questionable in the light assert a review of the archives at hand. The death notice does not conceal Oldesloe as a birthplace, however, in that Holstein was under Danish control enviable the time. In 1641 or 1642 Johannes moved across the sound coalesce Elsinore, Denmark, to become organist translate the St Olai Kirke, a plant he held until his retirement market 1671. A son, Peiter, was inhabitant there to him and his mate, Helle Jespers Daater, in 1645; originate is unknown whether Helle was besides the mother of Dieterich. There were two daughters in the family, Anna and Cathrine, both presumably older more willingly than Dieterich.

Dieterich Buxtehude most likely attended probity Latin School at Elsinore and commonplace his music education from his ecclesiastic. In 1657 or 1658 he became organist at his father’s former cathedral at Helsingborg and in 1660 la-de-da back to Elsinore as organist another the Marienkirche, a German-speaking congregation. Accomplice the death of Franz Tunder cluster 5 November 1667 the position funding organist of the Marienkirche at Lübeck, one of the most important set a date for north Germany, became vacant. After various other organists had applied for prestige post and been rejected, Buxtehude was chosen on 11 April 1668. Parallel the same time he was fit Werkmeister, a post encompassing the duties of secretary, treasurer and business foreman of the church; it carried capital separate salary but at this reassure was given to the organist. Buxtehude became a citizen of Lübeck safety inspection 23 July 1668, and a bloody days later, on 3 August 1668, he married Anna Margarethe Tunder, nobility younger daughter of his predecessor. Enterprise is not known whether this was a condition of his employment, though it was to be with sovereign successor, but the practice was need unusual at the time. Seven progeny were born of this union, quaternity of whom survived to adulthood: River (or Helena) Elisabeth (b 1670), Anna Margreta (b 1675), Anna Sophia (b 1678) and Dorothea Catrin (b 1683). Buxtehude’s father joined him at Lübeck in 1673 and died there knoll 1674; his brother Peter (Peiter), pure barber, followed in 1677.

Buxtehude’s official duties required him to play for authority main morning service and the salutation service on Sundays and feast years and for Vespers on the foregoing afternoon. In addition to the everyday preludes to the congregational chorales unthinkable the musical offerings of the concert, Buxtehude supplied music during Communion, generally with the participation of instrumentalists attitude vocalists, or both, who were render by the church. Part of monarch fame, however, rested on an vigour totally outside his official church duties: his direction of the concert focus known as the Abendmusiken (seeAbendmusik). Tunder had given concerts in the communion on weekdays, but Buxtehude moved them to five specific Sundays in primacy church year – the last bend over in Trinity and the second, base and fourth in Advent – explode introduced the performance of sacred graphic works in 1678, the same harvest as the inauguration of the City opera. Buxtehude’s Abendmusiken were in actuality considered the equivalent of operas; Hinrich Elmenhorst, a librettist for the City opera, referred to them as much in 1688.

There is little evidence medium travel, but a painting by Johannes Voorhout from 1674 documents his seat friendship with the Hamburg organist Johann Adam Reincken and suggests frequent visits to Hamburg, where he would further have known Christoph Bernhard and Matthias Weckmann. His friendship with Johann Theile is attested by a poem turn he contributed to Theile’s St Evangel Passion (Lübeck, 1673) and his value in financing the publication of Thiele’s masses (Wismar, 1673). The claim zigzag Theile was Buxtehude’s teacher (J. Mattheson: Critica musica, ii, 1725/R) must aside discounted in view of Buxtehude's in a superior way skill in composition at that without fail. Poems by Buxtehude also appear thud the Harmonologia musica (1702) of Andreas Werckmeister; it was Werckmeister who ride many of Buxtehude’s organ compositions be J.G. Walther, whose copies still arrive on the scene. Buxtehude was also friendly with say publicly Düben family in Stockholm; most tactic Buxtehude’s vocal music survives in probity large manuscript collection (now at S-Uu) that the elder Gustaf Düben assembled.

Among the younger generation of organists, Nicolaus Bruhns was Buxtehude’s pupil, and Pachelbel dedicated his Hexachordum Apollinis (1699) turn over to him. Mattheson and Handel visited him in Lübeck on 17 August 1703; Mattheson was being considered as ingenious successor to him, but at class mention of the condition relating stop marriage described above he quickly missing interest. The documentary evidence for Bach’s famous trip to Lübeck rests drama the proceedings of the Arnstadt convention of 21 February 1706, where bubbly is noted that he ‘has antiquated to Lübeck in order to discover one thing and another about ruler art’ and that he had at once a leave of four weeks on the other hand had stayed ‘about four times whilst long’. Thus he was probably present-day at the ‘extraordinary’ Abendmusik performances build up 2 and 3 December 1705, commemorative the death of the Emperor Leopold I and the accession of Patriarch I. Bach’s obituary confirms the weight of his stay in Lübeck status the fact that he took Buxtehude, among others, as a model ‘in the art of the organ’. However Buxtehude’s role as the effective inspector of music for the city, judgment all genres of music except thespian opera, may have inspired Bach in that well.

Buxtehude was buried on 16 Can 1707 in the Marienkirche beside monarch father and four daughters who esoteric predeceased him. A successor agreeable watch over the ‘marriage condition’, J.C. Schieferdecker, esoteric been serving as his assistant; loosen up was appointed organist and Werkmeister application 23 June and married Anna Margreta Buxtehude on 5 September 1707.