47. Dietrich Buxtehude - Organ Music (c. 1668 - 1707)

Recording

Title: Organ Music 5
Performer: Julia Brown
Year: 2005
Length: 87 minutes

Review

Well this was a really long album of Organ music and although I can recognise its qualities, which are quite obvious I was never a fan of Organ music, and this has not converted me.

Buxtehude is clearly the great precursor of people like Bach when it comes to organ, you can see a direct line between track on this recording and the future Tocattas and Fugues by JSB. Buxtehude has an extremely free style for his time and this makes him all the more original. In that it is quite an admirable recording.

But Organ music is just dull after the first half hour or so, I have actually been to many a Organ concert in my life, as that is the happening thing in my hometown of Evora where there is a great ancient organ in the 12th century Cathedral and there are concerts there all the time for obvious reasons, and it is a beautiful location, but even then you start thinking when is this going to end after a short while. It is just my least favourite instrument in the world, so there.

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The 19 organ praeludia (or preludes) form the core of Buxtehude's work and are ultimately considered his most important contributions to music literature of the seventeenth century. They are sectional compositions that alternate between free improvisatory sections and strict contrapuntal parts, usually either fugues or pieces written in fugal manner; all make heavy use of pedal and are idiomatic to the organ. These preludes, together with pieces by Nikolaus Bruhns, represent the highest point in the evolution of the north German organ prelude, and the so-called stylus phantasticus. They were undoubtedly among the strongest influences of JS Bach, whose organ preludes, toccatas and fugues frequently employ similar techniques.

Tocatta in D by Buxtehude, the process of playing the Organ is actually quite fascinating: