Dieterich Buxtehude might seem at first glance an interesting minor figure the “man who influenced Bach.” But consider: If he was a decisive inspiration to Bach that means that Buxtehude can lay claim to being the immediate progenitor of the mainstream classical music tradition we all enjoy Our experience of classical music has become rather abstract music was closely interwoven with everyday life Music was always “live” and enjoyed in the company of other people As often as not it was composed for specific occasions not so much as a “concert” in our modern sense but more in the nature of a friendly gathering they were usually attended by a select audience associated with a noble house or parish church For the most part music was created not for a vast global “market” but for a specific city Today music surrounds us constantly and is readily available in electronic form to the extent that the entire history of the art is at our fingertips But granting that there is a greater quantity of music now is our experience of music qualitatively any more meaningful than it was for our ancestors of centuries ago All our experience tells us that a greater quantity of anything tends to dilute the experience of it Music today is listened to more abstractly and passively than ever before in history While more music is heard than ever before it’s probably true that fewer people actively make music We have arrived at the paradox that more “classical” music is disseminated today than every before yet it is done so in a form and manner that is inimical to the way that the work was originally created and heard “Classical music” is itself a fairly recent concept going back no further than the early Romantic period and the formation of a distinct canon of works associated with the term was the work of the 19th and 20th centuries “Classical music” would have been an entirely foreign concept to and he had to supply a constant demand of it for the functions of everyday life The idea of creating art for posterity was characteristic of Romanticism In Bach’s era the idea was for an artist to do a good job Music lovers did not spend hours debating how violinist X and violinist Y played executed a trill differently Music for courtly dancing; music for theatrical performances: opera Music was experiential to a degree we can scarcely imagine today when recordings have “frozen” the art form making it something more like painting or architecture allowing us to preserve ideals of performance for reference to diffuse music widely and allow it to “last longer”—to some extent overcoming its limited and ephemeral nature We see Bach as the beginning of the Common Practice Period This is the period that constitutes the mainstream “classical music” repertoire and it includes the great Germanic line of composers from Bach and Handel through Bach’s sons and on through Schubert and the German Romantics Anything before Bach is typically classed as “early music” and is a somewhat specialized field of interest because there are many musical riches before Bach with each generation building upon the last Bach’s genius and accomplishments were enormous He had an important early inspiration and mentor What follows is a brief sketch of this pivotal yet all-too-little-known composer and musician I wish to highlight in particular how he (like other artists of his day) made music a part of life In this sense Buxtehude is an illustration of how music used to be enjoyed in a world very different from our own The “probably” is due to the fact that nationality and borders were rather fluid then and Buxtehude’s exact birthplace is not known One thing that was certain in that part of the world was Lutheran Christianity Buxtehude served in turn as an organist and choir leader in Lutheran churches in Elsinore (earlier immortalized by Shakespeare as the setting for Hamlet) Later he moved across the border to northern Germany a city which would become a vibrant center of music under his leadership One of the reasons we should take our hats off to Buxtehude is his role in creating the concert as we know it today vocal and instrumental works came together in the Abendmusik (evening music) a series of hour-long evening performances held in St The tradition had started with Buxtehude’s predecessor who had leavened workaday duties with the sweet blessing of music by performing short morning concerts for the city’s tradesmen before they went to work at the stock exchange Buxtehude built these performances up into dramatic ecclesiastical symphonies with singers and up to 40 instrumentalists (a sizeable orchestra for the time) combining with the spiritual architecture of the church to raise glory to God The Abendmusik concerts were so popular that they continued long after Buxtehude’s death But concerts were special events for Buxtehude His regular duties in Lübeck included composing and performing music for the city’s main public functions: cantatas for Sunday services composed on the scriptural theme of the day; and music for weddings And when all the official ceremonies were done there was still informal music-making in the home Because the way to hear music in those days was to make it yourself “The Musical Party” by the Dutch Golden Age artist Johannes Voorhout gives us a clear picture of the kind of convivial domestic music-making that was a part of life in those days spiritual significance that music had in the culture of the Baroque The painting shows a group of men and women enjoying music together The man playing the viola da gamba (a close relative of the cello) is most probably Buxtehude The man at the harpsichord is Buxtehude’s good friend and fellow composer Adam Reincken There is more to the painting than the musicians What is being envisioned here is music as a force expressing love and harmony The artists in the foreground seem to bring into being the ideal paradisical world of the background with the castle garden and loving couple—everybody cloaked in Baroque costume awash in flowing grace and elegance These aesthetic ideals were native to the Baroque era and can be sensed in its glorious music “The Musical Party” also provides a snapshot of what an informal gathering of chamber music looked like improvisation—the art of inventing music extemporaneously or of embellishing and expanding upon a written score on the spot—was second nature The typical Baroque chamber group (like the ensemble depicted here) was not unlike a jazz combo and the harmony-and-rhythm section (supplied by the harpsichord or lute) Far from being strictly tied down to a musical “text,” players could interpret their parts with a certain freedom adding tasteful embellishments or “graces” and in general taking an active role in interpreting the affect (emotional meaning) of the piece more uninhibited than the typical concert atmosphere of later centuries not the formal “penguin suit” of black and white but large floppy hats with plumes and flowing lace neckerchiefs Such a culture gave birth to the stylus fantasticus the fantastic style—a type of instrumental music in which free-flowing fantasies alternated with music in a scholarly contrapuntal style to create a colorful ever-changing musical mosaic expressing the multifaceted nature of life itself We can hear this “fantastic style” in Buxtehude’s wonderful chamber sonatas featuring the violin In these pieces Buxtehude loosened up the strict boundaries of form to concentrate on expression This sort of inspired flight of fantasy is something that composers in the classical tradition Musical form from the Classical period onward can get cut-and-dried An experiment: listen to a Buxtehude sonata and see if this is not a welcome antidote to much of the standard “classical music” canon Such exuberance within clear forms as Buxtehude achieves is the reason why we listen to any music at all This technique involves a continually repeating bass line acting as a foundation for intricate variations played by the melody instruments (and in many performances the variations may have been literally improvised) With results that can be kaleidoscopic or hypnotic the ground bass with its combination of stability and change expressed a sense of the eternal is not the mild-mannered and somewhat superficial charm of the rococo era which gave birth to the more substantial gifts of Haydn and Mozart with a sense of spiritual mystery and wonder at the order and workings of the cosmos You can hear it in the twang of the harpsichord and the zing of a violin string strung in the Baroque manner with catgut No matter what form it is written in or whether it is sacred or secular Buxtehude’s music brings this entire cultural world alive; it is the nearest thing to hearing voices from the past This world was formed by religious and spiritual beliefs To my way of thinking it was essentially still a catholic and sacramental world For although it is characteristically “northern,” we also hear in Buxtehude’s music an openness to more southernly inspiration and climes perhaps more than other German Lutheran composers of the day A case in point is Membra Jesu nostri (Our Jesus’ Limbs) a cycle of cantatas which Buxtehude wrote for Good Friday in 1680 The set of medieval Latin poems is each addressed to a different part of the crucified Savior’s body: feet Buxtehude’s music highlights the clear-cut rhythm and flow of the poetry; but on a deeper emotional level it enhances the believer’s identification with Christ’s suffering especially through an affective use of dissonance and consonance This cantata cycle has been described as the first Passion oratorio To get a sense of how new and modern this kind of music would have sounded to audiences at the time takes just a small effort of historical admiration Just picture yourself as a person of the 1600s used to the noble and stately sacred polyphony of the Renaissance You are in church and you hear music of jubilation but which seems to come out of the secular world of the dance producing joyous fanfares and exuberantly interweaving polyphony but not the polyphony of Palestrina; it is the new counterpoint of the Baroque an aesthetic that seems to unite heaven and earth in an exhilarating dance For this was a cultural world in which the sacred and the secular were not cordoned off into separate spaces but shared the dance floor If we are to appreciate the art of the past I believe we should engage in this kind of exercise—to sense the artwork as something fresh and novel This is precisely what “historically informed” musicians try to do when performing the music of the Baroque and other periods The bulk of Buxtehude’s work includes organ music—many preludes and fugues—and vocal music for church including many cantatas in German and Latin all of which served as models for Bach in his own essays in these genres written for his own parish community in Germany known only by their titles in a catalog or descriptions in a contemporary review it’s heartbreaking that we are unable to hear Buxtehude’s harpsichord suites based on the planets—a work he is known to have written but which has not survived Music in those days was too often governed by fashion and because the work of composers like Buxtehude was deemed unstylish by succeeding generations there was little effort to preserve it With the revival of interest in Bach in the early 19th century—thanks to Felix Mendelssohn and others—came an accompanying interest in the composers who influenced Bach spurred on even more by the early music movement since World War II most of Buxtehude’s extant works have been catalogued Will new compositions by Buxtehude (and other great composers) come to light Earlier I touched on the immediacy of a musician’s duties in the Baroque era We of a later day are used to a conception of art that sees the artist as an egotistical creator the artist was more in the nature of a public servant a humble artisan who served the common good Buxtehude seems to have been even more modest in this regard than Bach or Mozart both of whom experienced friction with the power structure above them Buxtehude in his dealings with higher-ups seems to have been the soul of courtesy and he adopted as his motto non hominibus sed Deo (not to man but to God) His devout and humble nature must surely have been one of the reasons why he was so revered One of those who most revered Buxtehude was a young organist and composer named Johann Sebastian Bach If many classical music fans know Buxtehude’s name at all it’s in connection with the well-known story of Bach travelling over 200 miles (on foot as the legend has it) to hear Buxtehude perform in Lübeck Bach was then 20 years old and enthralled with Buxtehude one of Germany’s best and most famous musicians He obtained leave from his superiors “to go up there to understand something or other about Buxtehude’s art.” just as the rehearsals for that year’s Abendmusik were about to get underway He had obtained permission to stay for four weeks; he ended up staying three months What happened during Bach’s time with Buxtehude He undoubtedly participated in the Abendmusik concerts as a violinist And he probably had one-on-one time with Buxtehude taking lessons on the organ or in composition absorbing the principles of the older man’s art Bach’s contact with Buxtehude was foundational to his career Bach became Buxtehude’s spiritual successor as organist Buxtehude might seem at first glance an interesting minor figure the “man who influenced Bach.” But consider: if he was a decisive inspiration to Bach the extravagance and extrovert expression of Baroque art were as much reflections of the glory of creation as of the glory of human potential And Buxtehude was one of those in the forefront of bringing this style to its maturity directly paving the way for the greatest master of the Baroque era and possibly the greatest composer of all time Mahler: None of their music would exist without Buxtehude But above and beyond his importance to music history it’s worth reflecting how this composer bore witness to the union of art and life When exploring the exciting world of early music you could do a lot worse than to begin with Buxtehude Author’s Note: The subject and much of the information for this essay were suggested to me by Alexander Winkler, a scholar of Buxtehude currently living in Denmark and recently the author of Buxtehude: The Musical Visionary Who Inspired J.S. Bach The featured image is “The Musical Party” or “Domestic Music Scene” (1674) by Johannes Voorhout, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons It is also thought that Buxtehude is the gentleman playing the gamba All comments are moderated and must be civil Comments that are critical of an essay may be approved but comments containing ad hominem criticism of the author will not be published comments containing web links or block quotations are unlikely to be approved Keep in mind that essays represent the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Imaginative Conservative or its editor or publisher I remember the first time I was made aware of the Viola Da Gamba; It was in a french film I saw in the nineties with the actor Gérard Depardieu the Gamba struck me as more versatile and emotionally evocateive than even the cello that maybe the film was losely based on Bachs visit with and brief tutelage under Buxtehude There’s also a town in Niedersachsen of the same name that naturally predates the composer and website in this browser for the next time I comment Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value" Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value" The Imaginative Conservative is sponsored by The Free Enterprise Institute (a U.S Your donation to the Institute in support of The Imaginative Conservative is tax deductible to the extent allowed by law The project is a global example of the shift towards low-emission mobility in local rail passenger transport on non-electrified routes Alstom unveiled the world's first hydrogen-powered passenger train In a pilot project run by the transport companies Landesnahverkehrsgesellschaft Niedersachsen mbH (LNVG) and EVB Eisenbahnen und Verkehrsbetrieb Elbe-Weser a successful trial has been carried out since 2018 involving two regular passenger trains on the Cuxhaven-Bremerhaven-Bremervörde-Buxtehude line a further 14 vehicles are due to be deployed A hydrogen refuelling station is currently under construction in Bremervörde the Danish composer who inspired BachBuxtehude the Danish composer who inspired BachDieterich Buxtehude was a composer so original that JS Bach felt compelled to walk hundreds of miles just to hear him at work Paul Riley salutes one of choral and organ music’s early geniuses So revered was the Danish-born organist and composer Dieterich Buxtehude that a young JS Bach walked from Arnstadt to Lübeck just to see him play the organ and meet him in person Buxtehude's reputation as composer and performer spread far beyond the confines of the Marienkirche whose organ lofts he graced for nigh on 40 years We named Buxtehude one of the greatest Baroque composers ever Dieterich Buxtehude was probably born in Helsingborg where his father was a church organist By 1645 the family is living just across the sea in Elsinore then Denmark’s second largest and most prosperous city Buxtehude was born into a world in which Monteverdi was on the cusp of publishing his Madrigals of Love and War (in a Europe consumed by the all-too-real Thirty Years’ War) and into an intellectual climate about to be get a good shake-up with Descartes’ ‘I think Not that this worried the good citizens of Helsingborg – the likely place of his birth – too much Or might he have gone to Hamburg whose four main churches would soon each boast a Sweelinck pupil at the console were the seeds of his future sown by a trip to Lübeck where the all-important business community was kept sweet by the recitals Franz Tunder gave in the Marienkirche on Thursdays before the opening of the stock exchange Nobody knows. Perhaps he simply stayed put. His first two jobs at any rate suggest a bit of a home bird (a year as organist at his father’s old church in Helsingborg followed by a return to Elsinore). What’s remarkable is that unlike Georg Muffat, who absorbed French influences directly from Lully in Paris and Italian style from Corelli in Rome Buxtehude produced some of the most original music of the 17th century without recourse to the creative nourishment of a travel-broadened mind lay around the corner and it would change his life in the teeth of vigorous competition for what was one of the key positions in North German church music Buxtehude became Organist and Werkmeister (a sort of clerical chief executive) to Lübeck’s Marienkirche The city in which he now found himself was cosmopolitan and vibrant even if its glory days at the head of the old Hanseatic League were over When Buxtehude obligingly married Anna Margaretha Tunder as a Class Four citizen he was allowed to serve cake but not wine at the wedding and he exceeded the permitted number of guests and musicians perhaps only on account of his singular position in Lübeck’s musical life One aspect of that musical life was about to get a transformation: the so-called Abendmusiken (evening concerts) which had grown out of Tunder’s merchant-pleasing recitals Scarcely had Buxtehude familiarised himself with the church’s three organs than he had two new galleries erected allowing space for some 40 singers and instrumentalists given in the late-afternoon wintry chill of November and December were poised to become crowd-pullers of European renown; and for Buxtehude the stage was set for a much more ambitious phase in his musical output music historian Caspar Reutz suggested that the performances afforded ‘a complete drama per musica’ only needing the singers to act for the Abendmusiken to trespass into ‘sacred opera’ Scored for six solo voices and a ‘heavenly choir’, The Wedding of the Lamb showed 1678 audiences Buxtehude’s fast-developing grasp of oratorio possibilities and the following year the anti was upped to almost 40 assorted musicians.. In effect Buxtehude was evolving a framework capable of sustaining the great Passions of his fervent admirer JS Bach In 1705 a visit from JS Bach coincided with performances of Castrum doloris and Templum honoris it can have been no coincidence that Bach walked to Lübeck in 1705 when ‘extraordinary’ Abendmusiken was in the offing To commemorate the death of Emperor Leopold I and the accession of Joseph I Buxtehude produced two oratorios suitably sumptuously worked for the occasion: Castrum doloris and Templum honoris Even the straightest of flying crows would be hard pushed to cover the distance from Arnstadt to Lübeck in 200 miles – the distance many writers have ascribed to JS Bach’s epic trek in the winter of 1705 to visit Buxtehude Depending on the route taken, the 20 year-old organist of the Neuekirche would have needed shoe leather for nearer 300, but the prize was evidently worth the investment. Handel must have thought so too He popped over from nearby Hamburg in 1703 in the company of Johann Mattheson Both Castrum doloris and Templum honoris are lost – as are all the oratorios (unless you accept the repackaged authenticity of Das Jungste Gericht) – but not lost on Bach was the very public facet of Buxtehude’s art (its influence on Bach’s cantatas would be practical as well as spiritual) and more particularly he came face to face with the genius of the German ‘stylus phantasticus’ at its most ‘fantastic’ Already in possession of some of Buxtehude’s organ music which he’d copied as a boy Bach now experienced its roots in the improvisations which fertilised all aspects of Buxtehude’s musical imagination Bach hungrily outstayed his leave by three months when he returned home the congregation of the Neuekirche found his chorale elaborations hard to follow It’s a neat twist that only a couple of years earlier the authorities at the Marienkirche had seen fit to provide boards for hymn numbers after complaints that Buxtehude’s own complex preluding had left worshippers wondering which chorale was being introduced It’s easy to sympathise with the bafflement Whether in the big-boned organ Praeludia or the intimate sonatas for violin gamba and continuo published as Opuses 1 & 2 in the 1690s Buxtehude’s extrovert brilliance so often tips over into a private world of soulful (perhaps short-lived) soliloquising Even the brilliance can assume a defiant whimsicality And Buxtehude’s D minor organ Passacaglia spookily anticipates Bach’s great specimen in C minor it was the organ music that spearheaded the Buxtehude revival which started on the back of Philip Spitta’s celebrated biography of Bach The vocal works have stepped out from the shadows more cautiously though That Buxtehude could rise to the venerable ‘stilo antico’ is evident in the Missa alla brevis and an early six-choir Benedicam Dominum salutes the Venetians in their own coin; yet if the vocal concerto signals Buxtehude’s contrapuntal skill the arias disclose his immediacy at its most guileless Buxtehude's most famous vocal work is the pietistically enrapt Membra Jesu Nostri a set of seven cantatas meditating on the body of the crucified Christ in a language sometimes harrowingly anguished and full of that spirit which moved one Lübeck contemporary to observe that ‘in the ardour of his compositions Buxtehude understood well how to give a foretaste of heavenly bliss’ More than three hundred years after his death that unquenchable ‘ardour’ remains more potent than ever Dieterich Buxtehude in the 1674 painting The Musical Party by Johannes Voorhout Zu einer Kundgebung unter dem Titel "Buxtehude wählt bunt!" lädt die Gruppe "Bunter Block Buxtehude" am Samstag Auf dem Programm stehen verschiedene Redebeiträge In Vorbereitung auf die Bundestagswahl am 23 Februar ruft der Block mit einem breiten Bündnis aus demokratischen Parteien Der freie und überparteiliche Verbund "Bunter Block Buxtehude"  will Farbe für Demokratie Menschlichkeit und Toleranz sowie gegen Hass demokratisch zu wählen und Desinformationen aufzudecken Februar Vertreter verschiedener Generationen (Bunter Block Buxtehude Fridays for Future) sowie aus den Reihen des Sports (Lutz Becker vom VSV Hedendorf-Neukloster) und des „Polizeischutz für Demokratie“ (Cord Varrellmann von der Gewerkschaft der Polizei) sprechen Außerdem wird es gemeinsame Statements aller in Buxtehude aktiven demokratischen Parteien (BBG/FWG Volt) und der Religionsgemeinschaften (Ahmadiyyy Musikalisch wird das Ganze begleitet von der Big Band Buxtehude und vom Buxtehuder Rapper „Normen Superior“ mit der Uraufführung des für diese Kundgebung komponierten Songs „Unsere Stadt ist bunt“ (bereits auf Spotify und YouTube veröffentlicht) Die Kundgebung wird zudem durch zahlreiche Vereine Einzelhändler und Kulturschaffende aus Buxtehude und dem Umland unterstützt Es wird ein Familienblock eingerichtet und wie bei allen Aktionen des Bunten Blocks Buxtehude wird auch hier wieder die „Democracy Couch“ zum Einsatz kommen auf der man sein Gesicht für die Demokratie zeigen und sich dafür fotografieren lassen kann Weitere Informationen können über bunterblockbuxtehude@web.de angefordert werden um diesen Inhalt mit «Gefällt mir» zu markieren Verpassen Sie nicht die neuesten Inhalte von diesem Profil: Melden Sie sich an um neuen Inhalten von Profilen und Orten in Ihrem persönlichen Feed zu folgen Es können nur einzelne Videos der jeweiligen Plattformen eingebunden werden Es können nur einzelne Beiträge der jeweiligen Plattformen eingebunden werden um selbst mit eigenen Inhalten beizutragen St Anthony of Padua’s tongue or “doubting” Thomas’s finger at Santa Croce in Rome has been a source of both fascination and repulsion to me: at a time when we should be celebrating the triumph of the spirit over the mortal body it seems bizarre to cling on to the decayed physical remains of the person whose death we are celebrating I made a visit to the Igreja Nosso Senhor do Bonfim in Salvador Brazil whose Sala dos Milagres (Room of Miracles) has walls covered with photos and testimonials on slips of paper thanking Senhor do Bonfim for his miracles On the ceiling hang the ex-votos offered by parishioners – wax or plastic replicas of body parts (arms representing those who were cured or need curing This expression of devotion finds its musical expression in Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri patientis sanctissima (The most holy limbs of our suffering Jesus) which I will perform with the English Concert orchestra at Wigmore Hall It is a rare musical ex-voto from a composer whom Bach admired so much that and stayed nearly three months to hear him play Bach would go on to write two of the most revered penitential works of the musical canon but Buxtehude’s oratorio inhabits a different world each referencing a different part of Christ’s body: feet with strophes from the great medieval hymn “Salve mundi salutare” One might imagine the piece would be a dark but what stands out is the music’s transcendental beauty where many composers would take the text “Clavos pedum et tam graves impressuras” (the nails in your feet the hard blows and such harsh wounds”) and paint a gruesome harmonic sound-world of dissonance and painful suspensions Buxtehude instead takes inspiration from the second part of the sentence “circumplector cum affectu” (I embrace lovingly) throughout the seven movements there is a sense that the membra are relics that must be kept as a reminder not only of the horror of Christ’s crucifixion I spent my 20s as organist at a number of churches: St George’s Chapel as the organ was largely silent until Easter Day (some churches even cover the organ pipes as well as the altar cross) the combination of sermons and the quiet purity of Byrd Tallis and Taverner sung by the choir under Simon Preston made me realise the enormous power of the musical rhetoric contained in a seemingly simple chord progression in a Lassus mass This paring down of musical gesture is not so much a simplification as a distillation and intensification and that is what is so moving in Buxtehude’s masterpiece The choice of a lean orchestral texture (just two violins cello and organ for most of the movements) the possibility of a narrative structure rejected in favour of a reflective seems a million miles away from the theatricality and virtuosic orchestrations of Bach’s passions I wonder whether one of the things that Bach took away from his visit with Buxtehude was the power of making the biggest impact with the smallest gesture: when Bach gets to the moment of Christ’s death he portrays it with devastating simplicity Harry Bicket with the English Concert orchestra Photograph: Stephanie BergerMembers of the English Concert orchestra like to talk as much about “speaking” with our instruments as we do about “singing”: not just the meaning but also the sound and taste of the words are incorporated into the mix And when one has the luxury of texts such as Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri dass ich Wassers gnug hätte and Schütz’s motet Die mit tränen säen like the wax limbs tied with ribbons on the wall of the Sala dos Milagres something that on the surface seems gruesome and unsettling can reveal itself to have beauty and power who sought his own peace with a debilitating illness Just think of it as leaving early to avoid the rush.” It is this strong sense of anticipation and redemption which is so uplifting and life-affirming Harry Bicket and the English Concert perform Schütz, JC Bach and Buxtehude at Wigmore Hall, London W1, on 2 April. englishconcert.co.uk. Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker That idea is reinforced by the unusual level of imagination and originality in its construction as well as in Buxtehude’s often ingenious responses to the text While it may be that individual cantatas were originally performed in isolation there is an unarguable logic in presenting all seven in a continuous sequence which is how most of us today know the work By my reckoning there are at least two dozen recordings currently available each of these new recordings offers something individual which makes them enticing on their own terms La Chapelle Rhénane and La Maîtrise de Garçons de Colmar with boys’ voices on the top line and hefty instrumental support the overall effect is more choral society than period performance Certainly this very full sound brings out the drama of the work; and with six powerful the performance has a breadth and expansiveness that is well captured by the full-blooded engineering this performance does come dangerously close to being bogged down by the sheer weight of numbers and I find the sixth cantata (‘To the Heart’) possibly a little too robust and operatic to be wholly convincing as an intense devotion to the dying Christ burst into life with a glorious explosion of energy and some superbly detailed singing from the three male soloists Supplementing the same vocal and instrumental forces he used on his 2017 Priory disc devoted to the sacred music of Purcell with the newly formed period-instrument ensemble Newe Vialles Andrew Arthur has also assembled a substantial body of performers drawing from them an intimacy and directness of expression which gets right to the core of the work the most impressive thing is Arthur’s pacing and sense of deep repose Time seems to stand still with the orchestral Sonata which opens the fourth cantata (‘To the Side’) before gently moving on into a decidedly Monteverdian setting of a text derived from the Song of Solomon At no time do you feel that Andrew Arthur is in any sort of a hurry to get through the work and a sense that at every corner and turn he is content to linger contemplatively imbues this performance with a rare sense of ease from Philippe Pierlot and the Ricercar Consort While Haller drew on the services of a large chorus six soloists and an instrumental ensemble of some dozen players and Arthur used 29 voices and an instrumental ensemble of 10 Pierlot makes do with just five singers and nine instrumentalists is no recipe for thin and desiccated sound Instead what we have here is a wonderfully full yet transparent sound greatly enhanced by the sheer quality of the voices and recorded with such luxuriance that the only concessions to the thinner forces are greater flexibility and a sense of a more focused expressive intent This is a truly lovely recording which certainly lacks neither the drama nor the intimacy of the others but adds to it a clarity of thought and expressive detail that I find wholly absorbing Discover the world's largest classical music catalogue with Presto Music If you are a library, university or other organisation that would be interested in an institutional subscription to Gramophone please click here for further information DIETRICH BUXTEHUDE was the foremost organ virtuoso of the generation preceding Bach — so famous that the young Bach walked 200 miles to Lübeck to study with him one of northern Germany’s most prestigious posts he was required to write and perform cantatas for orchestra and chorus as well as organ music Membra Jesu Nostri Patientis Sanctissima was written in 1680 Its seven linked cantatas were written not for a church service but as part of the tradition of devotional performances during Holy Week to a text in rhythmical Latin verse by Arnulf von Löwen (1200-50) Each section of the mystical meditation on parts of Christ’s body on the cross begins and ends with a quotation from the Old Testament with the central portion of the cantata consisting of a series of solo verses joined together by passages for two violins and continuo ending with a plea that Christ appear at the writer’s death As part of the Holy Week Festival at the Temple Church bringing out the music’s devotional rather than dramatic elements were somewhat overwhelmed by the larger space Soloists stepped forward from the choir and sang beautifully especially the boy trebles — all credit to their conductor Projection was less of a problem for the Oxford Bach Soloists’ instrumental quartet or the New Vialles their soft and burnished sounds a fitting counterpart to the choir’s gentle reverence Save money on books reviewed or featured in the Church Times > Click on the “Church Times Bookshop” link at the end of the review The reader discount is valid for two months after the review publication date run jointly by Sarum College and The Church Times tickets available This online seminar, run jointly by Modern Church and The Church Times discusses the theology underpinning the drive for growth tickets available We are a partnership of six diverse and welcoming congregations in the northern districts of Milton Keynes offering a rich tapestry of worshipping traditions – Anglican The Bishop of Lincoln seeks an ordained colleague to lead in vocational discernment within the Diocese Read reports from issues stretching back to 1863 search for your parish or see if any of the clergy you know get a mention Explore the archive Non-subscribers can read four articles for free each month while Cohen and the lutenist Thomas Dunford provide buoyantly beautiful accompaniments The master of Lübeck was so original that JS Bach felt compelled to walk hundreds of miles to hear him Explore one of choral and organ music’s early geniuses Lübeck in 200 miles – the distance many writers have ascribed to JS Bach’s epic trek in the winter of 1705 the 20 year-old organist of the Neuekirche would have needed shoe leather for nearer 300 but the prize was evidently worth the investment A great Dane (or so he saw himself according to the obituary notice in the Baltic ‘Nova Literaria’) of German stock and in possession of a reputation as composer and performer which spread far beyond the confines of the Marienkirche whose organ lofts he graced for nigh on 40 years Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Contribute to Limelight and support independent arts journalism Purcell may have been the most important British composer of his day but his musical taste came from the Continent The English composer’s talent and versatility flourished in a city and era with a huge appetite for the arts the extraordinarily prolific Donizetti proved himself to be the master of all operatic forms The 12th-century nun’s influential work represents an important development in the history of music Celebrating the German composer whose farsighted innovations forever changed our approaches to composing and listening French composer Emmanuel Chabrier might be best known for his vivid musical portrait of Spain but Wagner was his true inspiration it’s remarkable that the French composer found time to compose why did Prokofiev return to the grip of Stalin in the USSR It was his understanding of human emotions that made the 18th-century composer a true operatic genius music and mysteries of a remarkable Venetian whose exquisite vocal works are without parallel the short-lived Lili Boulanger left many questions tantalisingly unanswered Best known today for La Serva Padrona and his Stabat Mater Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s career is a prime example of how 18th-century music was closely associated with nobility and power Check out our playlists from our latest issue Our free Weekly Newsletter delivers the latest arts news reviews and features to your inbox each Saturday the world’s first network with hydrogen fuel cell trains in passenger service has now gone into operation 14 hydrogen-powered Coradia iLint regional trains are now in operation The operation is carried out by Eisenbahnen und Verkehrsbetriebe Elbe-Weser (evb) on behalf of the public transport operator Landesnahverkehrsgesellschaft Niedersachsen (LNVG). The order for the 14 Coradia iLints was placed back in 2017, and the first two were already in service on the route between Cuxhaven and Buxtehude in September 2018 the complete fleet of 14 Coradia iLint trains in series trim has now gone into passenger service and the project has a total volume of over 93 million euros to date “This project is a role model worldwide it is an excellent example of a successful transformation Made in Lower Saxony,” says Minister President Stephan Weil we are thus setting a milestone on the path to climate neutrality in the transport sector.” A hydrogen filling station was built in Bremervörde for the H2 trains The facility has a storage capacity of 1,800 kilograms of hydrogen distributed over 64 500-bar high-pressure storage tanks Six hydrogen compressors supply the two dispensers where the trains can refuel with hydrogen around the clock later it will be produced on site by means of electrolysis and regeneratively generated electricity – corresponding expansion areas for this plant are available Since the trains have a range of 1,000 kilometres with one tank of hydrogen they can cover their daily mileage without a refuelling stop – which takes place once a day outside operating hours 1.6 million litres of diesel should no longer be consumed per year The state subsidiary LNVG had already started looking for alternatives to diesel trains in 2012 The company still operates 126 diesel trains it does not want to buy any more new diesel vehicles Because of the early commitment to H2 technology Schwabl is convinced that they “have thus given an impulse to the development of hydrogen trains in Germany” “We are also convinced that diesel trains will no longer be economical to operate in the future We are pleased to have now reached another milestone with our partners Linde and Alstom as well as evb,” says the LNVG Managing Director “Emission free mobility is one of the most important goals for ensuring a sustainable future and Alstom has a clear ambition to become the world leader in alternative propulsion systems for rail demonstrates our clear commitment to green mobility combined with state-of-the-art technology We are very proud to bring this technology into series operation as part of a world premiere together with our great partners,” says Henri Poupart-Lafarge alstom.com I agree with the Privacy policy electrive has been following the development of electric mobility with journalistic passion and expertise since 2013 we offer comprehensive coverage of the highest quality — as a central platform for the rapid development of this technology Join us at the Akustika Fair at the Nuremberg Exhibition Centre from April 4-6 Meet The Strad team at stand F08 and pick up a free copy of the magazine The Strad Directory Jobs The Strad Issue: January 2016Description: Dutch trio takes on German Baroque ‘fantastic’ sonatasMusicians: FantasticusComposer: Buxtehude I warmed especially to Guillermo Brachetta’s free and easy harpsichord knowing when to forget about pulse and wander off in vivid recitative The disc’s high point is the G minor Praeludium of Buxtehude in which Brachetta’s unerring pace generates impressive tension over the eight-minute span The Resonus producer–engineer Adam Binks rightly gives him the spotlight for the first movement of August Kühnel’s A major Sonata but then Bracchetta cedes to gambist Robert Smith for an extravagantly reflective aria Violinist Rie Kimura brings a piercing and virtuosic presence to the top line even if her figuration tends to tighten up in quick movements such as the invigorating mini-sonata in A major by Johann Philipp Krieger Froberger and Muffat at London’s Wigmore Hall on 9 July 2023 An imaginative rethinking of music for viol consort An album to seduce and thrill in equal measure Site powered by Webvision Cloud In News by Ingrid SüßmannSeptember 2, 2016 This year, 26-year-old American author Victoria Aveyard is the winner of this prestigious literary award for her novel, The Red Queen (published by Carlsen in Germany) Aveyard will receive prize-winnings of €5,000 (US$5,575) calls it a “captivating phantasy novel with a compelling love story and a very surprising ending.” While many other literary prizes focus on authors from certain regions only the Buxtehude Bull accepts submissions from both national and international authors whose books have been published within the last year 90 titles were submitted and 8 made it to the shortlist which was then evaluated by a jury of 11 adults and 11 teenagers A jury as diverse as this is a trademark of the Buxtehude Bull which was established in the early 1970s in order to get young people interested in reading and to promote leading YA titles The prize functions as a seal of quality for young adult books Previous winners include famous German authors Michael Ende Many Buxtehude Bull winners have gone on to become household names 75 percent of the winning titles since 1971 are still in print Here’s a list of the winner plus the seven other shortlisted titles: For foreign rights inquiries about the German original titles (T.R.O.J.A please contact the following foreign rights departments: Ingrid Süßmann is an IT Project Manager at Droemer Knaur in Munich She previously worked as Author Relations Manager for neobooks and has held various positions at Random House Germany and Carlsen Verlag In addition to her work in book publishing Ingrid is also a certified beekeeper and fan of baby donkeys Sign up to get our FREE email edition, Monday to Friday! The rich Lutheran tradition of liturgies, choral works, hymns, songs and instrumental music has added to the worship experience throughout the centuries. We are a church that values and encourages diverse voices and lively dialogue in our faith and life. Living Lutheran is an opportunity for church members to express individual perspectives, and does not necessarily reflect official positions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. this audio is not yet available or has expiredBrought to you by A sublime performance of Buxtehude's beloved cycle of seven passion cantatas Erin Helyard directs the Orchestra of the Antipodes with Alexandra Oomens Each cantata is devoted to a single part of Christ's body on the cross heart and face using Biblical passages from the Psalms and excerpts of a medieval poem Also on the program is Buxtehude's Chaconne setting of the psalm Laudate Dominum featuring a consort of five viols and two sopranos Preceding each Buxtehude work is a Pachelbel Fantasia for organ performed by Erin Helyard Recorded live in concert at City Recital Hall Angel Place on 2 April 2023 by ABC Classic Johann Pachelbel: Fantasia in G Minor (P.128)Dietrich Buxtehude: Membra Jesu Nostri (BuxWV 75)Johann Pachelbel: Fantasia in A Minor (P.126)Dietrich Buxtehude: Laudate organ)Alexandra Oomens (soprano)Lauren Lodge-Campbell (soprano)Hannah Fraser (mezzo-soprano)Louis Hurley (tenor)Andrew O'Connor (bass)Orchestra of the Antipodes:Julia Fredersdorff (violin and treble viol)Karina Schmitz (violin and tenor viol)Laura Vaughan (violone and viola da gamba)Anton Baba (viola da gamba)Hannah Lane (harp)Simon Martyn-Ellis (theorbo and tenor viol) Pinchgut Opera Membra Jesu Nostri Program Members of Pinchgut Opera and the Orchestra of the Antopodes on stage at City Recital Hall Angel Place(Pinchgut Opera: Anna Kučera) Classical Music, Early Music, ChoralTracklist02:03Played at 02:03Fantasia in G Minor [02'03]Composer Orchestra of the Antipodes + Alexandra Oomens (soprano) + Pinchgut Opera + Lauren Lodge-Campbell (soprano) + Andrew O'Connor (bass) + Hannah Fraser (mezzo-soprano) + Louis Hurley (tenor) Mark Isaacs (piano) + Melissa Doecke (flute) Ulpirra Sonatines: Australian and French flute music, MD002 Cello Concertos From Northern Germany, ADX11200 Tinalley String Quartet: Mendelssohn, 481 7967 Download the ABC listen app for free music podcasts and playlists The Strad Issue: June 2015Description: Historic recordings from a great American violinistMusicians: Oscar Shumsky (violin) Nadia Reisenberg Erna Berger (sopranos) Maureen Forrester (contralto) James Melton (tenor) Bach Aria Group Other highlights are Saint-Saëns’s Introduction et rondo capriccioso both of Wieniawski’s polonaises brillantes played fairly briskly but always with poise – Shumsky’s rhythm is a pleasure throughout these discs The biographical note commits several howlers Bruce Hodges hears the performance of Bartók Dvořák and Kreisler at Philadelphia’s Perelman Theater on 10 May 2024  A master violinist scintillates in a bold and brilliant programme Tuesday marks the 75th anniversary of the bombing of the north German city of Lübeck by the Royal Air Force Some 400 tons of explosives fell in just under four hours; incendiary bombs created a firestorm Among the burned-out buildings was the Marienkirche home to numerous celebrated artworks — as well as two organs But the Marienkirche organs were unusually important to the history of Western music; their destruction left a small but frustrating epistemological hole Mary’s in Lübeck was perhaps the most prestigious church-music job in the German-speaking world was perhaps the most famous organist in Europe His performing brilliance indelibly shaped the instrument’s evolution; famously walked 250 miles to Lübeck just to hear the older man play what we think of as Baroque organ music (and thus organ music in general) sprang from those two Lübeck organs The smaller organ carried an unusual name: “Totentanzorgel,” the Dance of Death Organ referencing the church’s famous mural of the danse macabre depicting the entirety of the social hierarchy (That confluence of instrument and mural has inspired much theorizing — ultimately inconclusive — over dance rhythms in Buxtehude’s organ works.) became a focus of the growing early-music movement it was restored to something approaching the state in which Buxtehude played it That restoration is preserved only in a jotted-down stop list; the church’s own records disappeared behind the Iron Curtain at war’s end the exact nature of the organs Buxtehude played is probably beyond knowing Even how they were tuned — an important consideration given Buxtehude’s predilection for key choices that would have sounded intolerably dissonant under many then-common tuning systems — remains a matter of guesswork Buxtehude’s musical practice and ours are permanently estranged Casualties of war include connections to the past Matthew Guerrieri can be reached at matthewguerrieri@gmail.com. Home Delivery Gift Subscriptions Log In Manage My Account Customer Service Delivery Issues Feedback News Tips Help & FAQs Staff List Advertise Newsletters View the ePaper Order Back Issues News in Education Search the Archives Privacy Policy Terms of Service Terms of Purchase Work at Boston Globe Media Internship Program Co-op Program Do Not Sell My Personal Information professor of music and dance at Kansas University and wife Marie Rubis Bauer director of music at Saint Cecilia Cathedral in Omaha are pictured before the organ at Bales Organ Recital Hall where they will be presenting half of a series of organ concerts in honor of the 300th anniversary of the death of German composer Dieterich Buxtehude Marie Rubis Bauer jokes that when many people hear the name Dieterich Buxtehude That might be because little is known about Buxtehude’s life It also might be because he’s overshadowed by another Baroque German composer named Johann Sebastian Bach have decided to use their organ-playing skills to spread the word about Buxtehude to commemorate the 300th anniversary of his death “One of the misconceptions is Buxtehude is seen in relation to Bach,” Michael Bauer says “Many people see Bach as the culmination of the Baroque tradition But I think it’s really more accurate to say Buxtehude is the culmination a part-time Lawrence resident and director of music at St will present a series of eight recitals over the next two years to honor Buxtehude Monday at KU’s Bales Organ Recital Hall Buxtehude spent most of his professional career at Lübeck near Lawrence’s German sister city of Eutin He was known for an evening concert series that drew audiences from the region he might be best known for his relationship with Bach who walked the 280 miles from Arnstadt to work with Buxtehude He was so impressed that he overstayed his leave of absence from his job by three months “Buxtehude was such an importance influence on (Bach) he wanted to stay and soak up what he could,” Michael Bauer says the music attributed to Buxtehude is all from copies None of his original scores – if there were any – exist “It’s a combination of freedom and strict writing that’s really compelling “There’s more freedom on the writing of Buxtehude than Bach.” The latest headlines from the Lawrence Journal-World and KUsports.com Copyright © 2025 Ogden Newspapers of Kansas, LLC | https://www2.ljworld.com | 1035 N. Third Street, Lawrence, KS 66044 | 785-843-1000 | Terms of Service ★★★★☆Around the clusters of people waiting on the street in furtive tones as if talking about some kind of cult “Are you here for the Buxtehude?” Eventually the doors opened and we filed in to the serene Swiss Church We’d been told this event by the Figure Ensemble would be “immersive” and perhaps that buzzword made us timid because nearly everyone loitered around the edges But we were soon chivvied to stand in the middle for I worried that this brave venture from a fledgling ensemble would fall flat Thursday, 29th February 2024 — By Michael White Danish composer Dieterich Buxtehude (c1637-1707) portrayed in a painting ‘The Musical Party’ THAT the apparatchiks at Arts Council England don’t care for opera is fairly obvious not only from the hatchet job they’ve done on English National Opera but from the way they’ve decimated touring opera in this country not many companies are out there on the road now taking the great works of lyric theatre far and wide But one that thankfully remains is English Touring Opera which habitually opens its shows at Hackney Empire before hauling them off to places like Poole And although the Manon Lescaut that played there last week was a dog’s dinner of a production turning Puccini’s tragic love story into slapstick farce So I’m hoping for good things when ETO’s new Rake’s Progress opens at the Empire this Saturday • One of the great English voices of today is tenor Allan Clayton, who looks like an Old Testament prophet but sings like an angel. And he’s doing a bit of both at the Royal Festival Hall, March 2, as a soloist in Haydn’s oratorio The Creation – with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Edward Gardner. southbankcentre.co.uk • Another big choral work playing March 2 is Poulenc’s ravishing if blowsy Stabat Mater, which depicts the agony of Mary at the foot of the Cross in sweeping, almost cinematic terms. Paired with Bizet’s Te Deum, it’s done by Highgate Choral Society amid the magnificent grandeur of All Hallows Church, Gospel Oak. hcschoir.com Katie Minion’s choice of works from early Baroque (Buxtehude) to our own day (Escaich and Laurin) made for interesting listening at the Methuen Memorial Music Hall on Wednesday or could simply enjoy each work on its own terms Minion opened with one of the two most modern works on the program the third of the Organ Poems by Thierry Escaich (b Anyone interpreting the title as soothing and comforting was very quickly disabused of that notion: this technically brilliant work from 2002 was characterized by terraced dynamics (though emphasizing the louder end of the spectrum) it seemed to characterize someone relentlessly determined to find hope–and attaining it The artist’s powerful playing made the audience sit up and take notice from the start Johann Sebastian Bach’s lyrically beautiful Leipzig setting of An Wasserflüssen Babylon (By the Waters of Babylon) made a stark contrast with the preceding work Playing the single-pedal version (there is also one with double-pedal) effective registration: chorale tune in the tenor on the 8’ krummhorn right-hand accompaniment on an 8’ foundation Her rendering was akin to an older-school style of Bach performance with virtually continuous legato and little or no rhythmic inflection it was the single piece on the program that didn’t consistently engage attention The distinguished 20th-century English composer Herbert Howells (1892-1983) lost his nine-year-old son Michael to polio in 1935 a tragedy that colored much of the music he wrote for the rest of his long life The Prelude De Profundis (1958) seems to be a particularly personal work in this vein running the gamut from deeply introspective grief to hugely impassioned outcry the accompanying string celestes in the outer sections this organ’s celestes are employed for their lush beauty but in this context their undulating property evoked naked emotion as did the recitalist’s subtle lingering on certain aching chords Despite some dense textures and characteristically complex Howells harmonies she maintained clarity and allowed the piece’s continual major/minor ambiguity to come through Also clearly audible was the pedal line as it drove the accelerando/crescendo to the great climax The closing section’s desolate funeral march over repeated low F#’s in the pedal was haunting seemed the perfect portrayal of a mourner for whom hope is just out of reach Lightening the mood greatly was a second J Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr (Alone to God in the Highest Be Glory) from the third part of the modestly titled collection “Keyboard Practice” Minion worked out a pleasing balance among the three voices using a different mutation stop with 8’ in each hand and a nicely articulated pedal line This account also had greater rhythmic flexibility than the previous Bach performance The first half closed with a literally and figuratively fiendish scherzo composed four years ago the Etude-Caprice “Le Rire de Belzébuth” (Beelzebub’s Laugh) by Québec composer Rachel Laurin (b The name “Beelzebub” has sometimes been used interchangeably with “Lucifer” and “Satan” and the composer makes liberal use of dissonances and snarling reeds in this vivid character sketch The “study-caprice” shows the demon in a sardonic mood rather than menacing descending figures and repeated notes depicted infernal laughter while chromatic buzzing evoked the Lord of the Flies Minion displayed impressive footwork to meet the virtuoso demands of Laurin’s pedal part: octaves She also exploited a remarkably wide range of colors over this fairly brief piece and its  rather abrupt concluding chortle drew snickers from the audience After intermission we heard the Praeludium in E Minor The term “praeludium” covers a number of forms quasi-improvisatory sections alternating with stricter fugal ones Minion’s carefully selected stop combinations were a reasonable facsimile of Baroque sounds ranging from plenum with mixture to solo 8’ principal to quiet flutes The octaves in the third fugue’s subject may not have been ideally clear at the performer’s brisk tempo but this section nonetheless had the infectious rhythm of a jig which was justification enough Johannes Brahms used the most distant of keys (seven flats!) for his solitary Fugue in A-flat Minor a somber piece audiences seldom get to hear The sighing figures of the subject were moving due to Minion’s use of just an 8’ principal over a 16’ bourdon in the pedal direct registration of the second fugue of the preceding Buxtehude Although a 4’ principal was eventually added never getting above mezzoforte and ultimately tapering to flutes in the right hand The mournful ending was subdued and affecting Walcker organ are substantially what Max Reger (1873-1916) had in mind when writing his organ works the richness of the Methuen ensemble and the reverberant acoustic in which it resides add to the already great challenges of Reger’s large-scale works A Roman Catholic and a late Romantic composer adopting (while adapting) virtually all the forms that Bach used: fantasia His often dense polyphony is more technically difficult than Bach’s partly due to cultivating virtuosity for its own sake and partly due to Reger’s much expanded harmonic vocabulary the addition of crescendi/diminuendi to simply terraced dynamics and daunting numbers of specified stop changes throughout most of his works Minion not only met these great challenges One could cite a large number of felicitous touches uneasy pppp chords of the opening section twice interrupted by fff outbursts (famously likened to “striking lightning”) to arresting effect; after a subtle accelerando the sudden jump to electrifying fortissimo sextuplets; the quiet expressive cantabile on a solo quintaten; the powerful reintroduction of the chorale tune amid the frenzied activity of the fugue; and of course the magnificent chords of the coda But subtler virtues consistently remained—in particular a degree of clarity that let us hear an unusual amount of detail in whatever texture Reger called for This was an uncommonly fine recital for its diversity of repertoire and the skill with which Katie Minion adapted the instrument to so many widely different styles of organ composition She also displayed a powerful technique but almost without exception placed it at the service of the music for a range of purposes: sacred and secular Geoffrey Wieting holds Bachelor’s degrees in organ and Latin from Oberlin College and a Master’s degree in collaborative piano from New England Conservatory He sings with the Back Bay Chorale and serves on the Board of Directors of the Old West Organ Society Comments Off on Daring Katie Minion Daunts and Pleases If you would like to contribute articles or reviews to the Intelligencer, please familiarize yourself with our submission guidelines.  Subscribe to the Intelligencer. Seven of the world’s foremost choral composers have composed 15-minute musical responses to Dietrich Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri a monumental sacred work of the German Baroque consisting of seven cantatas The Crossing performs the new works alongside Buxtehude’s 1680 composition with two leading ensembles in their respective fields of performance: Quicksilver Baroque and ICE Our broadcast of Part 1 of The Crossing's Seven Responses is described here. July 24th from 4 to 6 pm—Buxtehude's Cantatas 5-7 (breast and face) and the responses of Lewis Spratlan The concert was recorded live in concert on June 25 2016 at the Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral Seven Responses challenges artists and audiences alike to explore our relative distance from Each composer was invited to collaborate with an author of their choice or to create their own libretto— those will include the words of Icelandic poet Guðrún Eva Mínervudóttir Be sure to check out this special website dedicated to The Crossing's Seven Responses project The project will be presented again in two concerts on the same evening August 21st at the Mostly Mozart Festival in NYC, alternating between old and new works throughout each concert The Crossing’s commissions have increasingly addressed issues related to the environment and to the individual’s place in the community Human suffering is often a theme in contemporary secular works similar in character to sacred works of the past. Membra Jesu Nostri addresses the suffering of Christ; this will serve as a starting point for the secular cantata each composer of Seven Responses has written chose the composers for their diverse styles and common interest in works with political or social themes Read the full program here. Santa Ratniece: My soul will sink in to you Germany -- The oldest known manuscripts of Johann Sebastian Bach — handwritten copies of works by two other composers — have been discovered in a library that was heavily damaged in a fire two years ago The two manuscripts date from around 1700 and contain copies Bach made of organ music composed by Dietrich Buxtehude and Johann Adam Reinken president of the Foundation of Weimar Classics Researchers found the documents in the archives of the Duchess Anna Amalia library in Weimar where a previously unknown aria by Bach was discovered last year was badly damaged by a fire in September 2004 the Bach manuscripts survived because they had been stored in the vault The foundation said the discovery provided vital clues about Bach's early development He was a 15-year-old schoolboy when he copied the two chorale fantasias — "Nun freut euch lieben Christen gmein" by Buxtehude and "An Wasserfluessen Babylon" by Reinken It said Bach attached a note to the Reinken copy that confirmed he was studying at the time with the organist Georg Boehm in the north German town of Lueneburg The manuscripts were found together with two previously unknown fantasias by Johann Pachelbel copied by Bach's student Johann Martin Schubart these organ works document the extraordinary virtuoso skills of the young Bach as well as his efforts to master the most ambitious and complex pieces of the entire organ repertoire," the foundation said It said the find also made clear that Bach went to Lueneburg in order to learn more about the influential North German organ school in Hamburg and Luebeck Schubart succeeded Bach as organist at the court of Weimar in 1717 and the newly discovered documents were passed to the library as part of Schubart's estate Both the manuscripts and the aria found last year were unearthed by researchers from the Bach Archiv foundation in Leipzig who have been combing German archives for information about the composer since 2002 The manuscripts will be exhibited at the library from Sept 1 and at the Bach Archiv in Leipzig from Sept