Buxtehude: Harpsichord Works [CD]

Chances are you've never heard any of Buxtehude's harpsichord music. I certainly hadn't in more that fifty years of concert-going and record-collecting. That's because his keyboard music is best known as played on the organ. And indeed most of his keyboard music is specifically for the organ--it contains pedal parts. But sometimes at the back of collections of his organ music there were pieces marked 'manualiter' (for manuals only) that not only can be played on the harpsichord but indeed, from internal evidence, were probably meant for that instrument (or any other pedal-less keyboard). Glen Wilson, a fine American keyboard player long resident in the Netherlands, brings us, in this hour-long CD, a collection of some of the choicest manualiter specimens. And it shows Buxtehude to be a worthy link between Froberger (1616-1667) and Bach (1685-1750).

The CD contains a wild mixture of styles and formats. It starts with a five-minute Toccata in G, that then leads into one of the larger works, 'La Capricciosa,' a set of 32 variations on the tune known as 'Bergamasca' (but in Germany known perhaps better as 'Kraut und Rüben' ['Cabbages and Carrots', the same popular song Bach used in the Quodlibet, Variation 32, of his 'Goldberg Variations']). 'La Capricciosa,' in G major, could be seen as a kind of model for Bach's better-known work. It is an oft-told story that Bach made a walking journey to Lübeck to heard Buxtehude play and learn from him; indeed he over-stayed his leave from his church job of the time in order to have more time with Buxtehude. This is also when he turned down the job of succeeding Buxtehude in his job at the Marienkirche because to do so would have required him to marry Buxtehude's spinster daughter.

The Chorale-Partita based on the chorale, 'Auf meinen lieben Gott,' BuxWV 179, is an odd duck in that it combines features of the suite (with an Allemande and Double, Sarabande, Courante and Gigue) with that of a set of variations. It is extraordinarily unusual for all the dances in a suite to be based on a single tune, as is the case here. There is a second suite in G minor, BuxWV 241, that is more like the suites we are familiar with, with the usual dance movements (Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gigue) based on different themes. Rounding out the disc are smaller single movements: two separate Praeludia, BuxWV 162 and 163, each containing fugal passages; a Canzonetta in G, BuxWV 171, and a very nice 7-minute 'Air with Two Variations in A Minor,' BuxWV 249. The latter is an impressively solemn, dark-hued work. It is wonderful to hear these works that are clearly transitional between those of the great Froberger and Bach works so familiar to us from many performances and recordings. It is particularly interesting to hear Buxtehude's own 'Goldbergs' (so to speak) and to hear a couple of suites from the earliest days of that form later brought to such perfection by Bach.

Wilson's harpsichord is a modern copy of a 1626 Ruckers made by Jan van Schevikhoven and the recording was made in a nicely resonant space in the Schüttbau, Rügheim, Germany in July 2003.

Scott Morrison

I'm not familiar with any of these pieces, but the album is very enjoyable. Perhaps these pieces were meant to be played on the organ, but the use of harpsichord enables the separate voices and melodic lines to be heard clearly. My favorite pieces are the toccara and two preludes (G major and G minor), especially the G minor.

My quibble with the album is the featured "La Capricciosa" variations. Don't imagine that you will hear a work of the complexity of the Goldberg or Diabelli variations. It's really more of a pedagogical piece. The theme is prominent in all variations and frankly gets tiresome after only a few (after all, Bach only used it - heavily elaborated - once in Goldberg). Naxos has then grouped 4 or 5 variations into the same CD track, making it difficult to know when an old one has stopped and a new one begun. Worst of all is the complete lack of notes to explain the variations. Only the humorous "bad taste" variation is identified. So unless one is very knowledegable about 17th century keyboard music, it is difficult to appreciate what Buxtehude is doing in every variation.

That being said, the muted variation (#16?) is gorgeous and my favorite of all of them.

But buy the album. The rest is excellent.