Buxtehude: Chorale Prelude BuxWV 196 'Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ'

This latest addition to Christopher Herrick’s acclaimed Buxtehude catalogue is performed on the magnificent Organ of Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge.

Everything heard on this disc was composed over three-hundred years ago when printed music was a rarity and organists were required to be highly proficient in the art of improvisation. Certainly none of Buxtehude’s organ works was printed in his lifetime, and it was not until 1875 that they first became available. Herrick’s communication is exceptional in these stimulating performances and his inspired interpretations are so vivid that they appear improvisatory in their approach.

Masaaki Suzuki here performs a varied selection of Buxtehude’s organ works ranging from brief chorale preludes to the magnificent Te Deum Laudamus and the celebrated Ciaccona in E minor. Although he is most widely known for his on-going, highly praised series of Bach’s cantatas on BIS, Masaaki Suzuki in fact began his professional career as a church organist at the age of twelve, later studying the instrument both in Tokyo and in Amsterdam.

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.