Dieterich Buxtehude Membra Jesu nostri - Atlanta Baroque Orchestra

devoto tibi pectore. temet ipsum tunc ostende
devoted to thee, on thy breast. then show thyself to me
(Vulnerasti repetatur) in cruce salutifera.
upon the cross which brings salvation.
VII. AD FACIEM
TO HIS FACE Amen!
Soprano I, Soprano II, Alto, Tenor, Bass Program note
Illustra faciem tuam super servum tuum; Dieterich Buxtehude was the foremost musician in Germany during
Let thy face shine upon thy servant; his active career, and with this concert the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra
observes the 300 th anniversary of his death and the 370 th of his birth.
salvum me fac in misericordia tua. It is not known precisely when or even where he was born, but the
make me safe in thy mercy. best deduction from available evidence is that he was 70 when he
(Psalm XXXI:17) died in 1707 (and therefore born in 1637), and that he was born in the
city of Helsingør (the location of the castle in which Shakespeare set
Alto, Tenor, Bass his play Hamlet). The fact of his pre-eminence during his lifetime is
Salve, caput cruentatum, demonstrated by the fact that more of his music survives — perhaps
five or six times as much — as any of his contemporaries, more than
Hail! O head stained with blood, any other besides J. S. Bach. (In fact, Bach himself is responsible for
the preservation of a very large proportion of Buxtehude’s organ
totum spinis coronatum, music.)
all crowned with thorns,
In one important respect, Buxtehude’s career was a mirror-image of
conquassatum, vulneratum, Bach’s. In spite of the fact that he was an organist, Bach spent the
disfigured and covered with wounds, final and longest stage of his career as music-director for the churches
of Leipzig, composing music for his choirs and conducting them,
arundine verberatum, and doing some organ-playing on the side. Buxtehude, on the other
struck with a rod, hand, remained an organist for all his life, most especially at the
church of St. Mary in Lübeck, where he presided over the great
facie sputis illita. organ for 40 years, from 1668 until his death. In that capacity he
the face spat upon and soiled. played a great deal of organ music (improvised, as was the custom
of the time — any music which was written down and survives to us
Alto was copied out for the sake of his students, to play and to use as
Dum me mori est necesse, models for their own composing). The direction of the choir, how-
If for me to did must be, ever, was in the hands of another musician; indeed, the choir was so
far away from the organ (choir near the altar at the east end of one
noli mihi tunc deesse, of the largest church-buildings in Germany, and the organ high in a
do not be absent from me, gallery at the west end) that Buxtehude could have had nothing to
do with the choral parts of the liturgy. But there were several galleries
in tremenda mortis hora at the west end of the church, high and close to the organ, from
in the dreadful hour of death; vocal and instrumental soloists performed during Communion, and
it is for these circumstances that Buxtehude wrote the major por-
veni, Jesu, absque mora, tion of his cantatas.
come, Jesus, without delay,
All of his music — the organ works like the “præludium” on this
tuere me et libera! program, the chamber music, and the cantatas — are single-
protect me and set me free! movement compositions, but within each single movement there
are a variety of tempos, meters, and textures. In this regard,
Soprano I, Soprano II, Alto, Tenor, Bass Buxtehude’s music is much like the madrigals of Monteverdi and
Cum me jubes emigrare, Marenzio or the toccatas of Frexcobaldi and Froberger. It was not
When thou biddest me leave this world, until two generations later, the generation of Bach and Handel and
Vivaldi, that these various sections within the single movement be-
Jesu care, tunc appare, came expanded and separated into distinct movements.
dear Jesus, then appear
O amator amplectende,
O lover whom I would embrace
,