1. Buxtehude Membra Jesu Nostri "Ad pedes"

Dieterich Buxtehude (1637 - 1707).

Schola Cantorum Basiliensis.

Maria Christina Kiehr (Soprano).
Rosa Dominguez (Soprano).
Andreas Scholl (Alto).
Gerd Türk (Tenor).
Ulrich Messthaler (Basse).

Dir. René Jacobs.

To all my friends and subscribers.

Membra Jesu Nostri:

Membra Jesu Nostri (English: The Limbs of our Lord Jesus), BuxWV 75, is a cycle of seven cantatas composed by Dieterich Buxtehude in 1680, and dedicated to Gustaf Düben. The text, Salve mundi salutare - also known as the Rhythmica oratio - is a poem written by Medieval poet Arnulf of Louvain (d. 1250). It is divided into seven parts, each addressed to a different part of Christ's crucified body: feet, knees, hands, side, chest, heart, and head.

1. Ad Pedes.

"Ecce super montes pedes evangelizantis
et annunciantis pacem."

Salve mundi salutare,
salve Jesu care!
Cruci tuae me aptare
vellem vere, tu scis quare,
da mihi tui copiam.

Clavos pedum, plagas duras,
et tam graves impressuras
circumplector cum affectu,
tuo pavens in aspectu,
tuorum memor vulnerum.

Dulcis Jesu, pie deus,
Ad te clamo licet reus,
praebe mihi te benignum,
ne repellas me indignum
de tuis sanctis pedibus.

"Ecce super montes pedes evangelizantis
et annunciantis pacem."

Biography:

Dietrich Buxtehude, who identified himself as Danish, was seemingly born in Oldesloe about the year 1637, the son of an organist and schoolmaster. His father moved briefly from Oldesloe, in the Duchy of Holstein, to Helsingborg as organist at the Mariekirke there and soon after to the Danish city of Helsingør, Hamlet's Elsinore, as organist at the St Olai Kirke, a position he held for some thirty years, until his retirement in 1671. Buxtehude was taught by his father and from 1657 or 1658 until 1660 was organist at the Mariekirke in Helsingborg, a city separated from Helsingør by a narrow stretch of water. His next appointment was at the Mariekirke in the latter city. In 1668 he was elected organist at the Marienkirche in Lübeck, where he succeeded Franz Tunder, who had died the previous year, following custom by marrying Tunder's younger daughter. Tunder's elder daughter's security had already been assured by her marriage to Samuel Franck, Cantor of the Marienkirche and the Catherineum Lateinschule, the choir-school that provided singers for the services of the Marienkirche.

At the Marienkirche in Lübeck Buxtehude made some changes in the musical traditions of the church, establishing a series of Abendmusik concerts given now on five Sunday afternoons in the year, events that attracted wide interest. As an organist Buxtehude represented the height of North German keyboard traditions, exercising a decisive influence over the following generation, notably on Johann Sebastian Bach, who undertook the long journey from Arnstadt to Lübeck to hear him play, outstaying his leave, to the dissatisfaction of his employers. Handel too visited Lübeck in 1703, with his Hamburg friend and colleague Mattheson. By this time there was a question of appointing a successor to Buxtehude, who was nearly seventy and had spent over thirty years at the Marienkirche. The condition of marriage to his predecessor's daughter that Buxtehude had faithfully fulfilled proved unattractive, however, to the young musicians of the newer generation and the succession eventually passed to Johann Christian Schieferdecker, who married Buxtehude's surviving daughter, predeceased by four others, three months after Buxtehude's death in 1707.

For a long time knowledge of Buxtehude's works was limited to the organ works and his major sacred choral works. Along with other Baroque composers, Buxtehude was "rediscovered" in the mid-nineteenth century, and his organ works were republished as an example of the style current before J.S. Bach. Interest in his chamber music works, however, has only gathered momentum in recent years. In these Buxtehude frolics with great imagination between learned contrapuntal traditions and a freer, more fanciful style. On the whole. Buxtehude's imagination is amazing, and gives his works a lively, improvisational feel. With our present-day fully-rounded picture of Buxtehude's works we can unhesitatingly count him as the greatest composer of the northern European Baroque in the period between Heinrich Schütz and J.S. Bach.

Category:

Music

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• Buxtehude
• Membra
• Jesu
• Nostri
• Ad
• pedes
• Schola
• Cantorum
• Basiliensis
• René
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• Valkiria
• Perez

[luisalandaeta]

two people are deaf...

[bestecimsi]

a great master. its not hard to understand why bach walked that way

[thecritiquevirtuoso]

@willzer808

Needs more Christopher Walken.

[willzer808]

needs more cowbell

[xerathul]

magnificent

[ellocosinnombre]

gracias por compartir

[FireEyedMaidOfWar]

@TomMinderson: Nope; as the divine Johann Sebastian Bach did journey in his youth to study composing with Buxtehude; and such modern terms are not used in classic arts: Michelangelo did not few Roman and Greek plastics as out of fashion but strived to equal their perfection and so do the German composers: Haendel, Bach and others were held in the highest esteem by the younger ones as Beethoven; as there is no such thing as fashion in the field of true art.

[TomMinderson]

@FireEyedMaidOfWar, weren't Bach and Buxe almost 100 years apart? Surely Buxe was considered "dated" at that time, kind of like 50's rock in the 70's.

[FireEyedMaidOfWar]

Only few people know this today: But the divine Johann Sebastian Bach did travel 400 miles per foot from Leipzig to Hamburg in order to study music composing by Buxtehude!

[SuperPw12]

Great performance!