Dietrich Buxtehude (1637 - 1707) is probably most familiar to modern classical music audiences as the man who inspired the young Johann Sebastian Bach to make a lengthy pilgrimage to Lubeck, Buxtehude's place of employment and residence for most of his life, just to hear Buxtehude play the organ. But Buxtehude was a major figure among German Baroque composers in his own right. Though we do not have copies of much of the work that most impressed his contemporaries, Buxtehude nonetheless left behind a body of vocal and instrumental music which is distinguished by its contrapuntal skill, devotional atmosphere, and raw intensity. He helped develop the form of the church cantata, later perfected by Bach, and he was just as famous a virtuoso on the organ.

No documentation exists for Buxtehude's birth, though he said late in life that he was a native Dane. Since his father, Johannes, was organist and schoolmaster at Oldesloe, Denmark, until 1638, it is a reasonable guess that Dietrich was born there. Johannes moved to Helsingborg in 1638 and to Helsingor in 1641 or 1642, where he stayed until 1671. After learning the organ at the feet of his father, Buxtehude became organist at his father's former church in Helsingor in 1657 or 1658; he then moved to a German-speaking congregation in Helsingborg in 1660. Buxtehude decided to stop following in his father's footsteps when the prestigious position of organist at the Marienkirche in Lubeck became available; after several others were rejected, Buxtehude got the job on April 11, 1668. He also married the outgoing organist's youngest daughter, Anna Margarethe Tunder, which may have been a condition of taking the post, and certainly was a condition when Buxtehude sought a replacement for himself. Buxtehude was organist at the Marienkirche for the rest of his life. His official duties were to provide congregational chorales and other musical interludes for every service, and to act as treasurer, secretary, and business manager of the church. He was most famous, however, for his Abendmusik concerts, held following the afternoon service on five Sundays a year and on special occasions. Although these concerts are universally described as extraordinary, and were the basis of most of Buxtehude's contemporary fame, very little music from them has survived. Two of the most famous Abendmusik concerts, held on December 2 and 3, 1705, and commemorating the death of Emperor Leopold I and the ascension of Joseph I, were probably attended by Bach on his pilgrimage. Buxtehude had an opportunity for early retirement in 1703, when Georg Friederic Handel and Johann Matheson (famous organists both) visited him; Matheson had been thinking of succeeding Buxtehude at his post, but balked at the requirement to marry Buxtehude's daughter Anna Margareta, and the visit came to nought. After Buxtehude died on May 9, 1707, the church found another organist willing to marry his daughter.

Historically, Buxtehude's organ music has been studied because of its direct influence on Bach; Buxtehude wrote the first truly idiomatic fugues for the organ and was one of the first to experiment with the structure that Bach later codified into the prelude and fugue. Buxtehude is generally considered the greatest organist between Scheidt and Bach and is regarded as the originator of the German organ toccata. However, in addition to the keyboard music that so impressed his contemporaries, he also wrote some extraordinary works for trios involving the viola da gamba. His vocal works shared the devotion and intellectual rigor of his instrumental work, and were also much admired.

His collection of sonatas for violin, viola da gamba, and continuo was published in 1696 in Hamburg by Nicolaus Spierink. Buxtehude himself paid for the publication of the sonatas. This instrumentation of the sonatas may appear a bit unusual today, but sonatas featuring solo violin and gamba were not uncommon in Germany in the latter half of the seventeenth century. Erlebach writes sonatas for the same instrumental combination, and Johann Adam Reinken, Buxtehude's friend in Hamburg, published a set of six sonatas for two violins, viola da gamba, and continuo.

Buxtehude's Op. 1 collection of sonatas is a bit unusual in that it contains seven sonatas. Most collections of pieces from the period included either six or twelve works; however, Buxtehude appears to have particularly enjoyed the number seven. He wrote a collection of seven suites, each one depicting one of the known planets, and his Membra Jesu Nostri is a collection of seven cantatas. Each sonata in Op. 1 is in a different key and the key layout for the collection makes a diatonic scale ascending from F.

The sonatas are all in several sections mostly alternating fast and slow movements. The length of each section varies considerably from as few as three measures to as many as 100 measures. Buxtehude was particularly noted for a style of writing known as the stylus phantasticus; this style of writing often involves chaotic rhapsodic passage work which is meant to appear improvised. This style may also include rapid changes of mood or texture. All of these features are apparent in these sonatas. Like in Buxtehude's Praeludia for organ, these sonatas also often alternate sections with free rhapsodic passage work with imitative contrapuntal sections. In two instances Buxtehude also uses variation procedure in these sonatas. The second sonata in G major ends with a set of variations on an "arioso," while the fourth sonata, in B flat major, begins with a series of variations above a three-and-one-half-measure ground bass.

Source: AllMusic (https://www.allmusic.com/composition/sonatas-7-trio-so natas-for-2-violins-viola-da-gamba-harpsichord-op-1-bux wv-252-258-mc0002574394).

Although originally written for Violin, Viola da Gamba & Harpsichord, I created this Interpretation of the Trio Sonata in E Minor (BuxWV 258) for String Trio (Violin, Viola & Cello).