The magnificat was a chant sung at vespers. The chant intones the passage from the New Testament in Luke 1:45-55 in which Mary contemplates the message she received from the angel Gabriel in which she was told that she would give birth to the Son of God. Buxtehude's settings of the chant are unlike any other known magnificat setting from the seventeenth or eighteenth century. Typically organ magnificat settings would be performed in alternation with a choir intoning portions of the magnificat chant. The organ versets performed would include the chant melody in one verse or another so that although the choir would not sing the entire chant, the organ would play the portions of the chant melody not sung by the choir. Although some of this setting makes oblique reference to the chant, this music is instead a free präludium no different than his other free works. Like the other Magnificat primi toni BuxWV 203, it begins with a free toccata passage in the stylus phantasticus followed by a section with imitative counterpoint. Rather than continuing with more strings of free and imitative sections it concludes with a double fugue in triple time.

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