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Bach pays Buxtehude a visit and Donald Macleod explores the composer’s early life.

Dietrich Buxtehude was a musical star in his own time, a legendary organist and composer who Johann Sebastian Bach walked almost 300 miles just to meet and learn from. Yet, the facts of Buxtehude’s own story are far from straightforward. Doubts remain over so many details in the composer’s life. We can’t even be sure when or where he was born, leading to three different countries claiming him as their own, and for a musician who perhaps above all was famed for his organ music, it is remarkable that not one single organ piece by him was published in his lifetime. In this Composer of the Week series, Donald Macleod pieces together what we do know about Buxtehude - the pre-eminent European composer before Bach, and finds a multifaceted personality and ground-breaking musician who worked his way across Europe via three different churches dedicated to St Mary, and who – once he settled in Lubeck - acted as a kind of centre of gravity for other musicians of his age.

In Monday’s programme, Donald examines the details of Bach’s trip to visit Buxtehude. He also revisits the beginning of Buxtehude’s life, tracing the facts back to Denmark, and exploring his early musical experiences with the organ, and his schooling which involved singing, astronomy and a strict ban on snowball fights!

Praeludium in G minor, BuxWV149
Kei Koito, organ

Benedicam Dominum, BuxWV 113
Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir
Ton Koopman, conductor

Chaconne in E minor, BuxWV 160
Bine Bryndorf, organ

Aperite mihi portas justitiae, BuxWV 7
Musica Lingua
L'arpa Festante
Stephan Schreckenberger, conductor

Sonata in B flat major, BuxWV273
Musica Antiqua Koln
Reinhard Goebel, conductor

Produced by Sam Phillips