E. Power Biggs: Buxtehude At Lüneburg (The Glory Of The Baroque Organ)

0:00 Prelude And Fugue In G Minor (BuxWV 149)
7:15 Chorale Prelude "Ein Feste Burg" (BuxWV 184)
10:53 Prelude, Fugue And Caconne In C Major (BuxWV 137)
Partita "Auf Meinen Lieben Gott" (BuxXV 179)
16:13 Choral
17:15 Double
18:18 Sarabande
19:05 Courante
19:58 Gigue
20:45 Toccata And Fugue In F Major (BuxWV 157)
26:24 Wir Danken Dir, Herr Jesu Christ (BuxWV 224)
27:37 Vater Unser Im Himmelreich (BuxWV 219)
30:15 Lobt Gott, Ihr Christen Allzugleich (BuxWV 202)
31:24 Chaconne In D Minor (actually Passacaglia, BuxWV 161)
37:21 Fugue In C Major ("Jig", BuxWV 174)

E. (Edward) Power Biggs plays the 1553 Niehoff/Johansen, 1715 Dropa, 19c. Eduard Meyer, 1953 van Beckerath organ in St. Johannis Lüneburg. Stoplist in comments.

Liner notes:
Music history books often encourage us to mislabel com­posers. "Buxtehude was the forerunner of Bach," we read. So we think, possibly, of Buxtehude as an en-route, a perhaps not-quite-so-good Bach. But nothing could be further from fact, for Buxtehude's genius is much too original and vital to be overshadowed by any later com­poser. In fact, on the basis of his music, Buxtehude must be rated as one of the spontaneous miracles of musical history.
The birth date of Dietrich Buxtehude is given as 1637. His father was organist at the Church of St. Olaf in Elsinore, Denmark. Buxtehude was successively organist at Helsingborg, Sweden, in 1657, at Elsinore in 1660, and in 1668 at the Marienkirche in Lübeck, remaining there until his death in 1707. It was in 1705, when Buxtehude was sixty-eight and Bach twenty, that the young Johann Sebastian made his famous pilgrimage on foot to Lübeck, a journey of some fifty miles, to pay homage to and learn from the older master.
Little is known of Buxtehude's early life, his musical training, his contacts with other musicians, or the origin of his musical ideas. He was a born individualist. His strong creative impulses apparently took shape by them­selves, instinctively forming a polished musical language quite complete within itself.
Buxtehude's compositions have a fine craggy grandeur. His music moves along in short spurts, almost in the style of improvisation, and his organ works usually com­prise a series of compact contrapuntal sections, relating or contrasting to each other. Almost everything is very tuneful and entertaining and is written with an excellent, practical sense of how to make the organ "sound."
As an instance of Buxtehude's practical relationship to the organ, consider the splendid and insistent pedal fig­ure, against brilliant manual arpeggios, in the Prelude and Fugue in G Minor; or the hint of Bach's Passacaglia­to-come in the .Chaconne in D Minor. There is a frank enjoyment of pedal and manual virtuosity in the Prelude, Fugue and Chaconne in C Major; and a buoyancy to the "Jig" Fugue, which has an engaging similarity to the later one by Bach. Incidentally, not even Johann Sebas­tian succeeded in writing as fine an organ prelude on Luther's "Ein Feste Burg" as did Buxtehude.
It is a privilege to be able to bring together in this re­cording the instrument, place and music, for the Lüne­burg organ affords precisely the right sonority, the right acoustics, the right period (an inaudible asset, it's true), the right "feel" of the tracker playing mechanism, and the right size and variety to set forth Buxtehude's music. No other instrument, in my experience, matches so well the fine rough splendor which characterizes the best of Buxtehude's organ works.

The organ at St. John's Church was built in 1550. It was constructed in Holland and floated on barges down the canals to Lüneburg. From time to time, additions and restorations have been made, the most re­cent rebuilding being by Rudolf von Beckerath of Ham­burg. Though this organ is now well over 400 years old, tonal and mechanical continuity has been preserved, and the instrument is one of the monuments of European organ building. It is interesting to reflect that the instru­ment was a century old when Buxtehude may have played it, and that it was 150 years old when Bach was a school­boy at Lüneburg. What a remarkable and authentic link this instrument provides to the mind and mood of Bux­tehude and his music!
Note: The Lüneburg instrument is often known as the "Böhm organ," since Georg Böhm was for a number of years organist at the Johanneskirche. It is possible that during the time he attended St. Michael's School (1700-1702), Bach may have been Böhm's pupil, though con­clusive evidence of this is lacking, and the young Bach did not have the foresight to carve his initials on the organ case for our assurance.