Buxtehude: Sonata for Violin, Viola da Gamba & Cembalo
by Dietrich Buxtehude
String Duet - Digital Sheet Music

Buxtehude Background

Dieterich Buxtehude (1637–1707) was, as a matter of fact, a Danish-German composer and musician of the Baroque era. With this in mind, his organ compositions are a fundamental part of the standard organ repertoire. Consequently, they are regularly performed at recitals and in church performances. For one thing, Buxtehude wrote in a wide variety of musical idioms. Another key point is that he strongly influenced many composers, including Johann Sebastian Bach. Musicologists today certainly consider Buxtehude as one of the most important German composers of the pre-Bach Baroque period.  Buxtehude, all in all, wrote a lot of vocal music. It covers, on balance, many different styles. Furthermore, his organ compositions focus primarily on chorale settings and sectional forms. His chamber music, in any event, represents only a minor part of his output. The only chamber works he published, on the whole, were fourteen chamber sonatas.

Lost Works

Many of his compositions have in time been lost. His oratorio texts have survived until now, but henceforth none of the musical scores can be found. Nonetheless, Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Philipp Telemann certainly used these oratorios as models for some of their works. Furthermore, a recently discovered directory of a 1695 sheet music-auction in Lübeck offers additional suggestions of such lost works.

Manuscript Copies

The only copies we have of many of Buxtehude’s works are, for the most part, copies provided by a variety of contemporary composers. The organ chorale settings are, on the whole, generally by Johann Gottfried Walther, while Gottfried Lindemann's copies concentrate on the sectional organ compositions. All in all, Johann Christoph Bach's copy is principally significant - it includes three ostinato works and the celebrated Prelude and Chaconne in C major, BuxWV 137. Buxtehude probably wrote his pieces in organ tablature, yet in either case, the majority of the reproductions are in typical staff notation.