Suite in A major, BuxWV 243

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Musical Terms (6)

• Abendmusiken German
  Evening concerts given by Buxtehude at the Marienkirche in Lübeck on the five Sundays before Christmas — among the earliest public concerts in Europe. The young Bach walked 400km from Arnstadt to attend in 1705.
  The vast reverberation of the Marienkirche demands slower tempos, clear articulation, and deliberate pacing of harmonic change than a drier modern acoustic. Modern performances often need slight tempo adjustments to preserve the clarity that Buxtehude's congregation would have heard.
• French Baroque ornamentation (keyboard) French/English
  The system of ornaments — trills (tremblement), mordents (pincé), turns (double cadence), appoggiaturas — used in French and North German Baroque keyboard music. Buxtehude's harpsichord suites use French ornament signs derived from Chambonnières and Louis Couperin.
  Trills begin on the upper auxiliary (the note above), not the main note — Baroque practice throughout. Mordents begin on the main note and dip once below. Appoggiaturas are generally on the beat, taking value from the following note. Ornaments should be crisp in faster dances (gigue, courante) and more lingering in the allemande and sarabande.
• Lutheran chorale German/English
  A congregational hymn of the German Lutheran church with a fixed melody and text known to the entire congregation. Buxtehude's organ works frequently use these as structural foundations — the listener was expected to know the associated words and theology.
  Know the text of the chorale before playing. The rhythm of the melody is often derived from natural German word stress; knowing the text prevents rhythmically inert performances. Ornamentation in Buxtehude's chorale lines elaborates the devotional affect of specific words — 'Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern' should shimmer; 'Ein feste Burg' should be solid and confident.
• North German chorale fantasia English
  A large-scale organ work based on a Lutheran chorale melody, in which successive lines of the hymn are elaborated in contrasting styles — cantus firmus in the pedal, ornate melodic variation, imitative entries, echo effects. Buxtehude's chorale fantasias are the most ambitious examples of the form.
  In a chorale fantasia each section should feel like a fresh discovery of the same melody. Registration changes between sections are idiomatic and expected. Keep the cantus firmus clear and slightly prominent; the surrounding counterpoint is commentary, not competition. Long pedal notes need a strong toe technique and a sense of harmonic arrival.
• ostinato bass Italian
  A repeating bass pattern over which upper voices construct variations — the structural principle of the chaconne and passacaglia. In Buxtehude's three ostinato works (BuxWV 159–161) the bass repeats without interruption while harmony and texture above it evolve through continuous variation.
  The bass must be steady and clear — it is the spine of the piece. Every variation should feel like a logical consequence of the last while introducing something new. Plan a long-range dynamic and registral arc. In the Passacaglia BuxWV 161, the central section in the relative major is the emotional high point and should feel like arrival.
• stylus fantasticus Latin
  The free, improvisatory style of North German Baroque keyboard writing — alternating between wild toccata passages and strict imitative fugues with no fixed metre. Athanasius Kircher coined the term in 1650; Buxtehude was its supreme practitioner.
  Stylus fantasticus passages demand sudden changes of pace and character within a single piece. The unmeasured sections should feel genuinely free — as though improvised at the keyboard. Contrast these sharply with the rigorous counterpoint of the fugal sections. Never let the rubato become arbitrary; each tempo fluctuation should be motivated by harmonic tension or melodic direction.