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Dietrich Buxtehude (c.1637–1707): Complete Chamber Music, Vol. 3 Six Sonatas without Opus Numbers BUXTEHUDE Sonata for 2 violins, viola da gamba 7:12 ^ Viola da gamba II solo: Allegro – 1:03 and basso continuo in G major, & Presto – 0:21 BuxWV 271 * Poco presto 1:17 Six Sonatas 1 Allegro – 1:02 2 Violin I solo: Adagio – Allegro – 2:06 Sonata for violin, viola da gamba 13:50 Adagio – 12/16 – Adagio a 3 – and basso continuo (organ) John Holloway and Ursula Weiss, Violin 3 Allegro – 1:34 in B flat major, BuxWV 273 4 Violin II solo: Adagio – Allegro – 1:08 ( 4/4 – 4:56 Jaap ter Linden and Mogens Rasmussen, Viola da gamba 5 Allegro 1:22 ) Adagio – Allegro – Adagio – Allegro – 3:13 ¡ Allemande – 1:59 Lars Ulrik Mortensen, Harpsichord Sonata for violin, viola da gamba 7:50 ™ Courante – 1:11 £ and basso continuo in A minor, Sarabande – 1:14 ¢ Gigue 1:17 BuxWV 272 6 4/4 – Allegro – 4:55 Sonata for 2 violins, viola da gamba 8:07 7 Adagio – 3/2 – Allegro 2:54 and basso continuo in C major, BuxWV 266 Sonata for 2 violins, viola da gamba 8:00 ∞ Adagio – 1:22 and basso continuo (organ) in F major, § Allegro – Adagio – 1:37 BuxWV 269 ¶ Violin I solo: (4/4) – Allegro – 1:31 8 4/4 – 1:51 • Adagio – Allegro – Adagio – 2:41 9 Violin II solo: 3/4 – Allegro – 1:17 Presto – Adagio – 0 Viola da gamba solo: 3/4 – Allegro – 2:15 ª Lento 0:55 ! Violin I solo: 4/4 – 1:17 @ Allegro a 3 1:20 This recording has been based on the following edition: Dieterich Buxtehude: Instrumental Works for Strings and Continuo, edited by Eva Linfield (Dieterich Buxtehude: The Collected Works, Vol. 14), New York Sonata for viola da gamba, violone 7:37 (The Broude Trust) 1994. (viola da gamba) and basso continuo Harpsichord kindly loaned by Thomas Mandrup- in D major, BuxWV 267 Foulsen # Adagio – 1:09 $ Allegro – 1:44 % Adagio – Viola da gamba I solo: 3/4 – 2:02 Allegro –

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Dietrich Buxtehude (c.1637–1707): Complete Chamber Music, Vol. 3 Mogens Rasmussen Six Sonatas without Opus Numbers Mogens Rasmussen was born in Copenhagen. He received his diploma from the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen and pursued further studies with Jordi Savall at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. Mogens In 1668, when Buxtehude was about thirty years of age was also a vigorous tradition of secular music, and the Rasmussen appears frequently as a soloist and continuo player both in Denmark and abroad, and is a member of the he was appointed to the coveted post of organist at St municipal musicians forged a close link between international gamba consort Bourrasque. He has participated in numerous television, radio, and CD recordings, and Mary’s Church in the free Hanseatic city of Lübeck. Up ecclesiastical and municipal music. The Ratsmusik in teaches at the Funen Conservatory in Odense and at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. to that time the whole of his upbringing, education, and Buxtehude’s time comprised seven highly qualified musical career had taken place within the boundaries of musicians retained, like the organist himself, directly by Lars Ulrik Mortensen the kingdom of Denmark. His father had left the little the Senate. Their duties included playing in church when Lars Ulrik Mortensen studied at the Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen and with Trevor Pinnock in London. town of Oldesloe in the duchy of Holstein to serve as instruments were required there, as well as appearing at From 1988 to 1990 he was harpsichordist with London Baroque and until 1993 with Collegium Musicum 90. He organist in Hälsingborg, and from there he moved at the public and private functions at the command of the now works extensively as a soloist and chamber-musician in Europe, the United States, Mexico, South America, and beginning of the 1640s to Helsingør; it was in those two Senate and citizenry. The string players had particularly Japan, performing regularly with distinguished colleagues such as Emma Kirkby, John Holloway and Jaap ter cities on opposite sides of the Øresund that the younger proud traditions going back to the beginning of the Linden. Between 1996 and 1999 he was professor for harpsichord and performance practice at the Munich Buxtehude took his first steps as a professional organist, century; the violin and gamba virtuosi of Lübeck and Musikhochschule, and he now teaches at numerous early music courses throughout the world. Until recently Lars ultimately being appointed in 1660 by the German Hamburg were famed throughout Europe. Ulrik Mortensen was also active as a conductor in Sweden and Denmark, where his activities at the Royal Theatre congregation of St Mary’s in Helsingør. The musical Not far from Lübeck lay Hamburg, a major musical in Copenhagen met with great critical acclaim, although he has now returned to work primarily with period horizon of his youth was not restricted, however, to the centre with an opera house and a collegium musicum as instrument ensembles. Since 1999 he has been artistic director of the Danish Baroque Orchestra, Concerto immediate locality in which he lived: only forty well as its long-standing church music traditions. Here Copenhagen, and in 2004 he succeeded Roy Goodman as musical director of the European Union Baroque kilometres south of Helsingør lay the Danish capital of lived a number of prominent composers, organists, choir Orchestra. He has recorded extensively for numerous labels, and his recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations was Copenhagen, with its flourishing musical environment directors, and others belonging to Buxtehude’s circle of awarded a French Diapason d’Or. The series of Buxtehude recordings from the 1990s for the Danish Dacapo label both ecclesiastical and secular, and Buxtehude must acquaintance, among them contemporary celebrities met with universal acclaim, and recordings of chamber music and cantatas by Buxtehude have won Danish Grammy have been familiar with developments there. In the such as Johann Adam Reincken, Johann Theile, awards, among other honours. In 2000 he was named Danish Musician of the Year for his recordings of harpsichord 1660s the Danish royal chapel was under the direction of Christoph Bernhard, and Matthias Weckmann. music by Buxtehude, which also received the Cannes Classical Award 2001. As a conductor his recordings include Kaspar Förster the Younger, and the organists of the six A great deal of the music of Buxtehude that has releases of harpsichord concertos by Bach and piano concertos by Haydn, in addition to symphonies by the Danish churches in the city attracted pupils from all over come down to us was in fact not written as part of his composers J.E. Hartmann, F.L.A.E. Kunzen and G. Gerson. Lars Ulrik Mortensen has received a number of prizes Europe. For example, Johann Lorentz the Younger, who duties as organist. Much of his church music was and distinctions, among them the Danish Music Critics’ Award in 1984 and in 2007 Denmark’s most prestigious probably taught Buxtehude, gave public recitals to large probably the result of close and fruitful cooperation with music award, the Léonie Sonning Music Prize. audiences in the church of St Nicholas. the kantors of St Mary’s, with whom he seems to have Buxtehude’s new position in Lübeck far exceeded shared the task of producing vocal music for the liturgy. St Mary’s, Helsingør, in both prestige and remuneration, Many works were also the result of initiatives not in any and in Lübeck he found a musical culture not far behind way connected with his church appointment. This that of Copenhagen; even courtly music was within his applies in particular to the famous Abendmusiken that reach, for not far away lay the palace of the Duke of had been established by his predecessor Franz Tunder; Gottorp. St Mary’s, Lübeck, was the most important Buxtehude expanded these to five annual church church in the city by virtue of its status as the official concerts with performances of big oratorio-like works, place of worship of the Senate, and in the next forty word of which spread over the whole of Northern years, until his death in 1707, Buxtehude was to practise Europe. a range of musical activities there that went far beyond When he was quite old Buxtehude published two his obligations as organist and book-keeper. While the collections of instrumental chamber music. Apart from a Kantor of the church bore the main responsibility for the few occasional works, these are the only examples of his musical establishment, and in particular for directing the art that were printed during his lifetime. Opus 1, choir, the organist had to play at services and on containing seven sonatas for violin and viola da gamba important feasts and holidays. In Lübeck, however, there with harpsichord continuo, is undated but probably 8.557250 2 7 8.557250 557250bk Buxtehude US 14/12/07 9:24 am Page 6

John Holloway appeared in 1694. Opus 2, with seven more sonatas for what the writing of sonatas meant to Buxtehude John Holloway is one of the pioneers of the modern early music movement in England. He founded his first Baroque the same combination, followed two years later. throughout his life. ensemble in 1975, and made the first complete recording of the chamber music of Handel. From 1977 to 1991 he Though instrumental composition was not one of The unpublished sonatas are for a more varied was concertmaster of Andrew Parrott’s Taverner Players, and from 1978 to 1992 concertmaster of Roger Buxtehude’s obligations as an organist, it was by no ensemble than those in Opus 1 and 2. Two are for violin Norrington’s London Classical Players. In addition to his concert schedule, John Holloway has an extensive and means uncommon at that time for organists to exceed and viola da gamba, one is for viola da gamba and award-winning discography: in 1991 he won a Gramophone Award for his recording of Biber’s Mystery Sonatas, the limits of their ecclesiastical function and publish violone, and three are for two violins and viola da and he has also recorded the violin sonatas of Bach, Corelli and Handel, as well as two versions of Vivaldi’s Four music as free artists, without any particular occasion of gamba. All six are with basso continuo. Seasons and many other solo and ensemble works from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Recent recordings performance in mind. Thus, a few years earlier Sonata in G major, BuxWV 271, for two violins and include a sequence for ECM New Series: Schmelzer’s Sonatae unarum fidium, two CDs featuring the 1681 Sonatas Buxtehude’s senior friend and colleague in Hamburg, gamba is symmetrically constructed and can almost be by Biber, a CD of sonatas by Veracini, and the sonatas and partitas for solo violin by J S Bach, which was awarded Johann Adam Reincken, had published a collection of regarded as one long concerto movement. It is in fact a Preis der Deutsche Schallplattenkritik in 2007. A CD of sonatas by Leclair has followed for ECM. Further sonatas for two violins, viola da gamba, and continuo characteristic of Buxtehude’s unpublished sonatas that recording projects include a CD of sonatas by Dario Castello for ECM New Series, and the complete Paris Quartets under the title Hortus musicus, and instrumental they contain more solo passages than the printed by Telemann. John Holloway is Professor of Violin and String Chamber Music at the Hochschule für Musik in chamber music could be used both in and out of church. collections. Three tutti sections, all marked Allegro, Dresden. It is likely that sonatas were played in St Mary’s on enclose parallel solo passages for first and second major feast days and during the distribution of Holy violins. The first tutti section is a short, concentrated Ursula Weiss Communion. In the secular musical environment of fugal construction where the three strings present three Ursula Weiss was educated in Innsbruck and has won several prizes at violin competitions in Austria. She studied Lübeck there would, of course, have been both expositions of the theme without episodes and with with Ingrid Seifert in London and Chiara Banchini in Basel and has been specializing since 1988 in Baroque professional and amateur musicians who were interested varied ground bass accompaniment in the continuo. performance practice and authentic Baroque instruments. She is a member of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra in playing sonatas written by the organist to the Senate. Towards the end Buxtehude makes room, as is his which tours in Europe, the United States, and Japan under the direction of harpsichordist Ton Koopman. Ursula Buxtehude was nearly sixty when he published his custom, for freer treatment of the material. Soloistically Weiss has played with many other European ensembles including London Baroque, Tragicomedia, and Capella sonatas, but he had been practising the genre for many motivated contrasts are a feature of the two uniformly Savaria, and she has participated in several recordings for labels such as EMI, Harmonia Mundi France, Musica years. One of the few compositions that can be attributed structured passages for solo violin: these are the second Oscura, and Erato. with reasonable certainty to his Helsingør period is a section of the sonata (Adagio – Allegro – Adagio – 12/16 fragmentarily preserved sonata, and in 1684 it was – Adagio a 3) for first violin and the fourth section Jaap ter Linden announced that he would soon be publishing a collection (Adagio – Allegro) for the second. The contrasts are As one of the first early music specialists, Jaap ter Linden witnessed the very beginnings of many of the oldest and of sonatas for two and three violins, viola da gamba, and between major and minor tonality, between finest baroque ensembles as co-founder of Musica da Camera and principal cellist of Musica Antiqua Köln, The continuo “suitable for performance both as Tafelmusik improvisatory, rhythmically free passages and tightly English Concert and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra. From these auspicious beginnings, he moved further into and in church”. This collection probably never came out, controlled figurations, and between slow and fast tempi. the spotlight, either playing solo concerts and intimate ensemble repertoire with the world’s finest interpreters or at but eight unpublished sonatas survive, some of which The tutti section in the middle of the work (Allegro) is a the helm of an orchestra as conductor. He founded and directs the Mozart Akademie (with which he has recorded may very well have been intended for it. set of variations over an ostinato strophe of two times the complete Mozart symphonies) and is a regular guest director and soloist with the Arion Ensemble (Canada). He Among Buxtehude’s unpublished compositions in four measures. a gracious melody that dissolves into has led many period instrument orchestras, including the San Francisco Philharmonia Baroque, Portland Baroque the Düben Collection in Uppsala, Sweden, are six figurations when repeated is played by the first violin and Amsterdam Bachsoloists, and lent his expertise to modern ensembles such as the Amsterdam Sinfonietta and complete sonatas in manuscript and a sonata fragment. and then by the second. At the last two statements of the the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie. His extensive discography as player and conductor boasts many award-winning Apart from a couple of sonatas in manuscripts in other ostinato strophe (now without repetition of the second recordings for labels such as Harmonia Mundi, Archiv, ECM, Deutsche Grammophon and more recently Brilliant libraries, the authenticity of which is doubtful (BuxWV half) the gamba joins the two high strings and eventually Classics. In 2006, he released his second recording of the Bach Cello Suites. Most recently he has involved himself 268 and Anhang 5), this exhausts the list of unprinted takes over their figurations, so that the section ends as a with the world of opera, conducting Purcell’s King Arthur with the Städtische Bühne Münster and Gluck’s Iphigénie chamber ensemble compositions that can be attributed to dialogue between three equal voices. The concluding en Aulide with the Royal Conservatory of the Hague. Buxtehude. None of the manuscripts tell us when the tutti evolves as a three-part fugal and concerted music was written, and none of them are autographs; treatment of a theme derived from the opening and most of them are copies in the hands of Gustav and concluding note repetitions of the solo passages. After Andreas Düben, father and son, but taken together with the theme has been assigned thrice to each of the three the published collections, Opus 1 and 2, they strings, the section proceeds as a concertato game played nevertheless contribute greatly to our understanding of with fragments of the theme and the recurrent cadential 8.557250 6 3 8.557250 557250bk Buxtehude US 14/12/07 9:24 am Page 4

motif. Here, too, Buxtehude succeeds with never-failing with two tightly constructed expositions in which the printed version. In Opus 1 Buxtehude published it in a the same time, the melodious grace of the dance inventiveness and musical enthusiasm in bringing a thematic entries are distributed equally between all three form (BuxWV 255, Naxos 8.557248) that is probably a movements, soloistic display in the stylus phantasticus, piece to its culmination in an effective final cadenza. strings: subsequently the movement opens up into a free later revision of the manuscript version. There are small and convincing answers to the challenge of the ostinato The Sonata in A minor, BuxWV 272, if any of treatment of thematic fragments leading to an arresting but significant motivic alterations in the first section and technique. The introduction to the sonata, Adagio, Buxtehude’s sonatas, deserves to be called an ostinato cadenza with reprise effect. The two solo passages for some new concluding measures to the second section. A proceeds in a dignified and resounding dialogue sonata; it is scored for violin and viola da gamba and second violin and gamba are uniformly structured. Both more far-reaching change is that Buxtehude has between the two violins, announcing that this is to be each of its two sections (4/4 – Allegro and Adagio – 3/2 instruments present a lyrically expressive melody, a substituted a new Lento for the slow Adagio introduction stately music for a small group of instruments. The – Allegro) is constructed over a repeated bass motif of song-like aria in triple time, followed by an ornamented to the second section; and in Opus 1 he has also omitted opening measures are echoed in all the Adagio passages four measures. In the first section the ground bass is variation in quick time (a double). These two sections the four dance movements of the concluding suite in the of the work and in the fugue subject of the succeeding played 26 times, but the listener has long since stopped are characterized by sombre, minor-key tone-colouring; original. All in all the printed version testifies to greater sections (Allegro – Adagio), where strict exposition counting when the music concludes with a pompous when the first violin enters with a solo cadenza in concentration on compositional detail and a desire to gradually gives way to free manipulation of the thematic return to the violin melody from the introduction. For common time and the key of B flat major (subsequently break away from the conventional sequence of sonata- material. A surprise effect is Buxtehude’s contrast Buxtehude has here combined the ostinato principle joined by the organ with an energetic, forward-moving and-suite that was so well known at the time. This between the culmination of the fast section in a with a series of variations on a lyrical aria theme that the bass line), the effect is that of an unexpected emergence original redaction offers us the only example of an dynamically effective cadence and its resolution in the violin presents during eight measures covering the first into bright light. All three solo sections are unified by a ensemble suite by Buxtehude. Its four stylized dances harmonically tense Adagio measures that follow. The two statements of the ostinato. With constant shifts typical upward “cadence drive” at the end. The final tutti (Allemande – Courante – Sarabande – Gigue) follow third section (4/4 – Allegro) is left to the first violin, between concerted and contrapuntal sections in movement is a dance-like ritornello structured like a the traditional pattern also found in the composer’s whose virtuoso and freely formed solo in the ‘fantastic changing rhythms, the composer succeeds in creating a concerto grosso, bringing together the tutti harpsichord suites, and the dances themselves display style’ gives way to its own rhythmic and melodic colourful and varied whole. All our fears of monotony in instrumentation of the first movement and the solo the usual bipartite structure. An Allemande in equal time opposite, an allegro passage in strict gigue rhythm. After a ground bass movement are put to rest. The second effects of the middle sections. is followed by a Courante in triple time based on the this tour-de-force follows one of the most composite section begins with ten Adagio measures that establish a The Sonata in D major, BuxWV 267, is preserved in same thematic material, after which comes a slow sections in any of Buxtehude’s sonatas. It starts with six motivic connection to the preceding section and a transcript by Andreas Düben dated 27th September, Sarabande also in triple time; the first measures of the Adagio measures that preface a short fugal section modulate from F major to a half close in A minor. This 1692. The copy was perhaps written while Düben was sarabande contain motivic reminiscences of the two (Allegro); an Adagio bridge passage in sarabande forms a prelude to a chaconne-like ground bass in triple studying in Lübeck; it is at all events a witness to the preceding movements. The conclusion is in the form of rhythm then carries us from C major to A minor, and to time repeated fourteen times in the continuo, above close relations between Buxtehude and the Düben a fast Gigue in 12/8 time with artful canonic treatment of a Presto section that presents a three-measure ostinato which the violin and gamba play concerted solo family in Stockholm. Andreas Düben became the voices at the beginning of the second half. Here we motif in the continuo with artful counterpoint in the passages alternating with segments in which they Kapellmeister to the Swedish court in 1698, and it was see Buxtehude breathing new life into traditional forms, answering voices of the strings. The last two repetitions exchange parts. All of this is done with plentiful musical he who gave the family’s large collection of music to the and if only for that reason the early version of this sonata of the ostinato open on to yet another Adagio, this time invention, and when the ground bass sounds for the last university library in Uppsala in 1733. The sonata is the deserves to keep its place in the repertoire, though by to round off what has been a highly varied section with time the music changes character, with a brief Allegro only one that Buxtehude wrote for two low strings, tenor 1694 its composer had different ideas. a weighty cadenza including a ‘short reprise’. Ten passage in equal time bringing the sonata to an end in a viola da gamba and violone (here interpreted as meaning If Buxtehude had realised his intention of publishing independent Lento measures bring the sonata to an end breathless diminuendo. a bass gamba). It is the most simply constructed and yet another collection of sonatas, as had been announced in the same dignified manner as it began. Buxtehude The Sonata in F major, BuxWV 269, is the most uniform of the composer’s sonatas, based as it is on only in 1684, the Sonata in C major, BuxWV 266, would may not have written music about the nature of the soloistically conceived of all Buxtehude’s sonatas and three musical ideas: the cadential motif of the surely have been assigned a prominent place in it. It heavenly bodies, as Johann Mattheson later claimed, but must have been a great vehicle for display by the introductory Adagio which recurs in the Adagio sums up all the principal elements in the sonata art of the this sonata certainly deserves the name of his ‘Jupiter virtuoso string players among the municipal musicians introduction to the first gamba solo; a fugal theme Lübeck master: the seriousness and daringly expressive Sonata’. of Lübeck. Two concise outer movements (4/4 and common to the second and final sections, Allegro and harmony of his majestic slow movements, the unifying Allegro a 3) enframe a separate section for each of the Poco presto; and lastly the bipartite dance movement motivic relationships between sections of the same Niels Martin Jensen three strings. The first two of these sections, for second that is presented in the first gamba solo (3/4) and is work, fugal technique that is strict and free at one and Translation by Michael Chesnutt violin and gamba respectively (both 3/4 – Allegro), are followed by solo and tutti variations (Allegro – Allegro lyrical in quality while the last is a heavily ornamented – Presto). section in hectic tempo for the first violin. The opening The Sonata in B flat major, BuxWV 273, is the only This CD was previously released on Dacapo 8.224005 movement of the sonata is a fugal section, beginning one by Buxtehude that exists in both a manuscript and a 8.557250 4 5 8.557250 557250bk Buxtehude US 14/12/07 9:24 am Page 4

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CMYK NAXOS NAXOS Having been born half a century after Heinrich Schütz, the ‘father of German musicians’, and a little less than half a century before J. S. Bach, Dietrich Buxtehude was a living link between the founder of Protestant Baroque music and its greatest master. This set of Six Sonatas without opus numbers incorporates all the principal elements in the sonata art of the Lübeck master; the serious yet daringly expressive harmony of his majestic slow movements, masterful fugal technique, DDD BUXTEHUDE: BUXTEHUDE: melodious and graceful dance movements, and technical virtuosity in the many solo movements. Sonatas, Opp. 1 and 2 are available on Naxos 8.557248 and 8.557249. 8.557250

Dietrich Playing Time BUXTEHUDE 52:35 (c.1637–1707) Complete Chamber Music • 3 i Sonatas Six i Sonatas Six Six Sonatas Without Opus Numbers 1-5 Sonata in G major, BuxWV 271 7:12 6-7 Sonata in A minor, BuxWV 272 7:50 8-@ Sonata in F major, BuxWV 269 8:00 #-* Sonata in D major, BuxWV 267 7:37 www.naxos.com Disc madeinCanada.PrintedandassembledUSA. Booklet notesinEnglish 1995 & (-¢ Sonata in B flat major, BuxWV 273 13:50 ∞ ª - Sonata in C major, BuxWV 266 8:07 2008 NaxosRightsInternational John Holloway and Ursula Weiss, Violin Jaap ter Linden and Mogens Rasmussen, Viola da gamba Lars Ulrik Mortensen, Harpsichord and Organ Recorded at Radio House, Studio 2, Copenhagen, from 25th to 28th September, 1994 Producer: Claus Due • Engineer: Peter Bo Nielsen • Editors: Aksel Trige and Peter Bo Nielsen 8.557250 This CD is previously released on Dacapo 8.224005 • Booklet Notes: Niels Martin Jensen 8.557250 Please see the booklet for a detailed track list • This recording was sponsored by Gangstedfonden and Magister Jürgen Balzers Fond and was made in cooperation with the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (P2 Musik) • Cover Picture: Dance on the Village Square by Matthias Scheits (c.1630-c.1700) (Private Collection / AKG London) Ltd.