The Sixteen - Buxtehude - The Sunday Times - Culture
01 April 2001
The Sunday Times - CultureDietrich Buxtehude is remembered today primarily as the greatest German organist-composer before Bach.(Both Handel and Bach applied for his job in Lubeck, but apparently balked at one of its perks: the hand of Buxtehude's daughter.) He also wrote a vast amount of vocal sacred music, more than 130 surviving works, of which all but this one are set to German words. In this passiontide cycle of seven devotional cantatas on the "Most Holy Body Parts of Our Suffering Jesus", the staunchly Lutheran composer responds to the Latin texts with a Roman sensuality unique to the output of a man who rarely left his native north Germany. The Sixteen's performances bring a rapt, meditative intimacy to this ravishing music.
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The Sixteen
Buxtehude Membra Jesu Nostri