Buxtehude: Lob Gott, ihr christen, allzugleich BuxWV 202

Christopher Herrick’s acclaimed series of Buxtehude’s Complete Organ Works reaches a fifth and final volume. Here he returns to the composer’s (disputed) home country of Denmark, and the organ of Mariager Klosterkirke.

Highlights include the magnificent Praeludium in C major, BuxWV137 (known to English-speaking organists as the ‘Prelude, Fugue and Chaconne in C’) and the Chorale Fantasia on the Christmas melody ‘Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ’, BuxWV188—among the longest and most elaborate of Buxtehude’s chorale settings.

Dieterich Buxtehude’s organ works are his most significant contribution to the history of music. They consist of a comprehensive corpus of just 90 compositions, of which more than half are chorale settings. However, these are mostly shorter than the preludes, toccatas and other freely conceived pieces, so these last represent a more substantial share of his entire output. Five different types of pieces are included among the works collected in this CD, all representing distinct genres of improvisatory styles that make up the broad spectrum of the daily practice of organists in Lutheran Germany, whether designed as functional music for worship services, for presenting them in recitals, or for purposes of compositional study.

Ton Koopman studied organ with Simon C. Jansen and harpsichord with Gustav Leonhardt, alongside musicology in Amsterdam and was awarded the Prix d’Excellence for both instruments. As an organist he has performed and ecorded on the most prestigious historical instruments of Europe.

Our CD takes us on musical journey from the Baroque to the Romantic era. It is the sequel to our CD "Great Joy - Große Freude 1" (HAEN98444).

No other holiday is as closely bound up with music and song as Christmas. And the playing of the familiar holiday songs is also an age-old element of music for brass instruments, cultivated for centuries by the traditional small brass ensembles playing from German church towers. As Johann Kuhnau, Bach's immediate predecessor as organist and choirmaster at St. Thomas' church in Leipzig, wrote in 1700, "When our waits blow their trombones from the tower playing a sacred song at the holidays, we are incomparably moved, and could think we were hearing the singing of angels." Even today, brass music is still capable of touching us this deeply. That is why the joyous, regal sound of the brass insturments are an indispensable part of the musical sounds of the Christmas season.

The Schwerin Brass-Collegium: In 1975 nine musicians from Schwerin got together on the initiative of trumpeter Hans-Joachim Drechsler to form the Schwerin Blechbläser-Collegium. It was the first ensemble of its kind in Germany. The Schweriner Blechbläser-Collegium cultivates nearly all styles of music with a repertoire of more than 200 works by more than 100 composers from six centuries.