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 Praeludium in E minor is one of Buxtehude's longer
seven-section praeludia at 155 measures. It consists of
four free toccata segments and three fugues. The outer
two free sections are the most substantial while the
two interior free sections are tiny in comparison. In
fact it could be argued that there is no free section
in between the first and second fugue, since the first
fugue only briefly breaks down into rhapsodic material
before the second fugue starts. Like BuxWV 141, there
may be a vague thematic connection between the three
fugue subjects, but they do not exhibit the same tight
thematic connection found in BuxWV 140. Typical of
Buxtehude all three fugues are in different meters, the
first in common time, the second in 3/2 time, and the
third in 12/8. The first fugue has one chromatic
inflection with an A' which is raised to an A sharp'.
The second fugue subject takes the chromaticism issue
much further with a descending chromatic line from B'
down to G'. The last free section grows so
spontaneously out of the final 12/8 fugue that it is
difficult to decide where the fugue ends and the free
section begins, but the last two thirds of the 12/8
music contain no complete entrances of the fugue
subject.