Dietrich Buxtehude 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 v...(+)
Dietrich Buxtehude 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.
This is Buxtehude's largest and possibly also his most
grand cantus firmus-based composition. It couples many
of Buxtehude's different compositional styles into one
large entity. It sets the Te deum chant from the
Gregorian repertoire. The chant is fairly long, and
Buxtehude marks periodically in the score what portion
of the chant he is working with. The work begins with a
free toccata passage, followed by a fugue which breaks
down into free toccata material just like one finds in
his Präludia for organ. The chant cantus firmus does
not appear until measure 44. At this point Buxtehude
starts with a bicinium (two voice) setting of the Te
deum laudamus portion of the chant, tossing the chant
melody back and forth between the tenor and soprano.
After 20 measures he places the chant melody in the
bass and expands the texture to three voices. Starting
in measure 74 he adds a fourth voice and at measure 80
expands yet further to five voices and double pedal
texture. The bicinium and tricinium method of setting a
chorale melody was old-fashioned by the time Buxtehude
was working as a mature composer; however, the free
voice in this setting appears incredibly original and
could hardly be seen as something old fashioned. The
pleni sunt coeli portion of the chant Buxtehude sets as
a chorale fantasy, similar to what one sees in the
second verses of Scheidemann's Magnificat settings.
Typical of the North German chorale fantasy Buxtehude
employs plenty of echo effects between the
rückpositive and the haupt werk keyboards on the
organ. The Te Martyrum portion of the chant Buxtehude
sets the cantus firmus in the tenor in the pedals
against two free contrapuntal voices in the manuals.
The last portion of the chant, Tu devicto, appears with
four voice imitative counterpoint creating a quadruple
fugue which employs bits and pieces of the chant. The
strict fugue breaks down at the end returning to the
free toccata texture the work began with for a wild
ending typical not all too dissimilar from the endings
of his free Präludia.
Although originally created for Organ, I created this
Interpretation of the Chorale prelude: "Te Deum
Laudamus" (BuxWV 218) for String Quartet (2 Violins,
Viola & Cello).
PARTITION