Along with the Ton Koopman Opera Omnia, I did also acquire a pristine copy of the revised edition of Kerala J. Snyder's Dieterich Buxtehude, Organist in Lubeck for less than the £45 marked on its Heffers label when most available copies were considerably more than that. I'm not sure how many other households in my street have a copy of that.I had once thought that the chapter in the Grove volume on North German Baroque was as much as I was ever going to know about but this definitive work contains much more than even I will ever need to know or be able to inwardly digest.
It is a big thrill to be able to have and hold one's own such book and read the fuller story behind the few one-line details usually to be found. For instance, it is not quite the case that the postholder of organist in Lubeck was expected to marry a daughter of the previous incumbent. Buxtehude's predecessor, Franz Tunder, hadn't for a start. While Dieterich had several daughters, and three remained unmarried into their mid twenties, the fact that Mathieson and Handel had visited, probably as prospective applicants for the job but declined it is no evidence of that. And it is no reflection on the perceived comeliness of the Frauleins Buxtehude that Handel was not interested in marriage because there is conspicuously no trace of romantic involvement anywhere in his biography.
Bach's visit was surely entirely educational and it is quite possible that his extended stay involved playing in the concert series of Autumn 1703 in Lubeck.Again, with some hindsight, it would have come as some relief to the young ladies that they didn't become Johann Sebastian's wife given the exhausting programme of reproduction that the eventual Frau Bach went through.
But without struggling through the detaikled chapters of musicology, well beyond my minimal appreciation, Prof. Snyder's monumental survey is a wonderful thing to have and the ideal companion to the discs.
Still returning to them regularly, I must sooner or later for my own sake at least nominate the top 6 and it makes for a fitting Bank Holiday special feature.
Any anthology of the music of the period would have to include the sublime Klag Lied from Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dehin, BuxWV 76, a mourning song written on the death of his father that is oustanding among the choral work, more likely written for occasions or concert performance rather than church use.
The long time favourite piece, hidden away in the less often played repertoire of the trio sonatas, is the Sonata in B Flat, op.1, BuxWV 255, a bright, free-spirited chat between violin and viola da gamba redolent of all the Italian origins of the baroque in Corelli from which the later generations of household name composers took their style. Buxtehude is not all Lutheran pietism and devotional, he looks like of lot of fun on his days off from that.
Whereas Membra Jesu Nostri is the set of cantatas most often appearing in the catalogue and thus is picked ahead of the hours of sacred music as representative of it and a greatest hit. Not to select those would be like not including Maggie May in Rod Stewart's 6 and the comparison is not so incongruous once we remember that Handel, author of Messiah, lived next door to Jimi Hendrix, whose Voodoo Chile quite clearly shows the benefit of his influence.
La Capricciosa is a set of keyboard pieces I heard played in Handel's house there in a concert to mark the 300th anniversary of Dieterich's death and, as an exploration of the keyboard it probably could come ahead of the organ work in a purely personal choice. With only four out of 29 discs being taken up by organ music, it seems possible that more Buxtehude organ music was lost than is extant. To admire Buxtehude but not for his organ music is a bit like admiring Geoffrey Boycott but not for his batting but perhaps Buxtehude was an organ player rather than an organ composer and it is the choral music that dominates the complete works and leaves the overwheliming impression on the memory.
But to represent him, an organ piece needs to be included and a choice needs to be made between the muted, reflective moods of the quieter pieces and the stops-out, bravura pieces. Organ music is much better heard played resounding in a church than limited by the reproductive capability of any CD player. The Toccata in F, BuxWV 156, is strictly of the latter type. I may or may not have heard it in Portsmouth cathedral but it explains itself coherently here and would no doubt benefit greatly from being heard there rather than on this Sony contraption I have here.
Which leaves space for only one more selection which inevitably means finding the needle in a haystack from all the choral work that doesn't uinfairly leave out all the other deserving pieces. The soprano part punctuated by plaintive violin embellishment on Herr, wenn ich nur dich hab, BuxWV 38, is a short burst of allelieuas that would again make the case for Buxtehude as more celebratory and less sombre than the overall tenor of his output probably is but there are two such major pieces at the head of the list and my point is that he can be as playful as he can be melancholy and it is always good to finish on an upbeat note.
As an investment to occupy those endless weeks in between big race meetings in retirement, the discs and book are a more attractive prospect than making something of the garden.