Dieterich Buxtehude (c. 1637 to 1639) was a
German-Danish organist and composer of the Baroque
period. His organ works represent a central part of the
standard organ repertoire and are frequently performed
at recitals and in church services. He composed in a
wide variety of vocal and instrumental idioms, and his
style strongly influenced many composers, including
Johann Sebastian Bach. Buxtehude, along with Heinrich
Schütz, is considered today to be one of the most
important German composers of...(+)
Dieterich Buxtehude (c. 1637 to 1639) was a
German-Danish organist and composer of the Baroque
period. His organ works represent a central part of the
standard organ repertoire and are frequently performed
at recitals and in church services. He composed in a
wide variety of vocal and instrumental idioms, and his
style strongly influenced many composers, including
Johann Sebastian Bach. Buxtehude, along with Heinrich
Schütz, is considered today to be one of the most
important German composers of the mid-Baroque.
"Durch Adams Fall ist ganz verderbt" (BuxWV 183) is one
of Buxtehude's most interesting chorale preludes. The
chorale melody appears ornamented in the soprano range.
The chorale deals with Luther's doctrine of the fall
and salvation of mankind. The text of the first verse
reads as follows: "Through Adam's fall the nature and
existence of man has become entirely corrupt, We have
inherited that same poison so that we cannot recover
without God's comfort, which has redeemed us from the
great wrong, into which the serpent forced Eve to take
upon herself God's wrath."
Other verses deal with how mankind is redeemed from the
fall.
Buxtehude makes numerous references to the text of the
chorale in the free contrapuntal voices of the chorale
prelude. During the first line of the chorale the bass
line moves almost entirely by downward leap, depicting
a fall. At the third line of the chorale, in which the
text refers to the poison that came upon mankind
through the fall, Buxtehude sends a descending
chromatic line contrapuntally through all of the voices
besides the cantus firmus. The descending chromatic
line typically represented death in Baroque music, and
Buxtehude may have been alluding to the doctrine that
the result of the fall was that death.
Although originally created for Organ, I adapted this
work for WoodWind Quartet (Flute, Clarinet (Bb), Oboe
and Bassoon).
PARTITION