Buxtehude - Complete Organ Works Volume 1
Christopher Herrick (organ of Helsingør Cathedral, Denmark)
Herrick displays great energy and a keen ear for registrational variety
Buxtehude - Complete Organ Works Volume 1
Christopher Herrick (organ of Helsingør Cathedral, Denmark)
Purchase product
Herrick displays great energy and a keen ear for registrational variety
About
Dietrich Buxtehude was famously visited by J S Bach who walked from Arnstadt to Lübeck to hear him play. Bach stayed far longer than his employers expected, so captivated was he by the older man’s playing. That Handel also visited Lübeck, in 1703, further underlines Buxtehude’s stature.
The indefatigable Christopher Herrick has embarked on a complete series of Buxtehude’s organ music. The repertoire falls into two basic categories: free works, and works based on pre-existing melodies. To the first category belong the preludes and fugues, toccatas and fugues, ostinato works, and single-movement pieces such as the Fugue in C, BuxWV174. To the second belong the works based on chorale and plainsong melodies. A tantalizing selection of these is recorded here on the great organ of Helsingør Cathedral, Denmark.
Contents and tracklist
Awards and reviews
Herrick displays great energy and a keen ear for registrational variety
June 2008
Herrick's razor-sharp articulation is at one with Buxtehude's fastidiously chiselled counterpoint…
July 2008
The recorded sound is warm and reassuring offering an ideal balance twixt instrument and acoustic. Production, engineering and playing are all splendid/
16th May 2008
Buxtehude's organ music dives into two categories. There are the freely composed works in the standard forms of his time, and the pieces based on pre-existing music. The first disc in Christopher Herrick's series is a neat mixture of both. Preludes, fugues, toccatas and a chaconne are mixed with chorale preludes, variations and the chorale fantasia on Nun Freut Euch, Lieben Christen Gemein. Herrick's performances, on the organ of Helsingør Cathedral in Denmark, sometimes try a bit too hard to be ear-catching, yet their rhythmic vitality bodes well for the discs to come.
Classical Music
Herrick embarks on another epic for Hyperion, and the first instalment whets the appetite. Buxtehude’s delicate contrapuntal intricacy is offset by occasional flamboyance … the organ of Helsingør Cathedral, on Buxtehude’s home ground of Denmark, offers an excellent
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