Dietrich Buxtehude (c. 1637-1707); DNK/DEU

Dietrich Buxtehude (c. 1637–1707) was a Danish-German organist and composer whose music represents a summit of the north German Baroque and exerted a profound influence on Johann Sebastian Bach. His exact birthplace remains uncertain, though he probably grew up in territory then under the Danish crown. After holding organist positions in Helsingborg and Helsingør, he moved in 1668 to Lübeck, where he succeeded Franz Tunder as organist of the Marienkirche and married Tunder’s daughter, Anna Margarethe. Buxtehude remained in Lübeck for nearly forty years and became famous throughout northern Europe. He directed the church’s celebrated Abendmusiken, elaborate public musical performances held during the Advent season. In 1705 the young Bach famously walked from Arnstadt to Lübeck, a journey of hundreds of kilometers, to hear Buxtehude and study his art.

Buxtehude composed organ and keyboard works, sacred vocal music, chamber music, and songs, combining contrapuntal mastery with dramatic freedom and expressive intensity. His organ praeludia exemplify the stylus phantasticus, alternating improvisatory passages with rigorously constructed fugues and exploiting the color and scale of large north German instruments. His many chorale settings transform familiar Lutheran melodies through ornamentation, counterpoint, and imaginative registration. More than one hundred sacred vocal works survive, ranging from intimate devotional concertos to larger cantata-like compositions; the cycle Membra Jesu nostri is among the best known. His instrumental sonatas similarly combine Italianate virtuosity with German contrapuntal technique. Buxtehude’s bold formal freedom, harmonic imagination, and treatment of the organ provided an essential model for Bach and helped establish the foundations upon which the mature German Baroque would build.

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Read biography at allmusic.com.