Diderik Buxtehude (1637-1707): Toccata BuxWV 165 / Gilbert Martinez, harpsichord

Diderik Buxtehude (1637-1707): Toccata BuxWV 165
Gilbert Martinez, harpsichord
(Ruckers school, Roberts & Brazier, 1994, Los Angeles)

Det Danske Cembalo Menageri
(Gilbert Martinez, Artistic Director/Producer)

Heptachordum Danicum: The Pathways to Buxtehude

Danish composer Diderik Buxtehude (1637/39-1707) is without doubt the greatest organist of his time. His music made a direct influence on his younger admirer, Johann Sebastian Bach. The main focus of Buxtehude scholarship today focuses on his time in the Hanseatic city of Lübeck (1668-1707), where he played one of the largest organs in Europe and attracted many great musicians, including Pachelbel, Reincken, Böhm, Mattheson, Handel, and Bach himself.

Det Dansk Cembalo Menageri (“The Danish Harpsichord Menagerie”) is creating a new project, the “Heptachordum Danicum”, named after a music instruction book for choirboys that would have been known to the young Buxtehude whilst growing up in Denmark. This umbrella project seeks to involve scholars, performers, instrument makers and others in multidisciplinary studies of Danish music from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment.