From Buxtehude to Bach

Works by Dietrich Buxtehude, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Pachelbel…

Lucile Richardot, mezzo-soprano / Marc Mauillon, baritone 

5 instrumentists

Buxtehude, the greatest German composer of the 17th century, had a profound influence on the young Bach. His virtuosic music, always inventive and poetic, bridges the gap between Schütz, Monteverdi, Sweelinck, and the young generation of the 18th century. With the Abendmusik he organized in Lübeck, Buxtehude also pioneered a new way of experiencing music in concert. These musical evenings attracted listeners from all over Northern Europe.

We often hear about the famous journey to Lübeck that Bach undertook on foot from Arnstadt, during which he stayed for three months with the great master. But we know nothing of their meeting or their activities there, aside from the fact that Bach was marked by Buxtehude’s influence throughout his life. Indeed, even at the end of his life, when he composed his famous Goldberg Variations, he paid homage to the old master who had passed away thirty-five years earlier by composing 32 pieces on the same way as the 32 pieces of Buxtehude’s Variations  La Capricciosa, and by using a common theme.

Bach’s familiarity with the composers of northern Germany dates back to his youth, as he was trained for some years by Georg Böhm in Lüneburg, a period during which he regularly traveled to Hamburg to meet and to listen to great masters of the North : Johann Adam Reincken and Vincent Lübeck.

This concert invites you to rediscover Dietrich Buxtehude, a musical genius, his friends Reincken, Bernhard, Pachelbel, and others, and their mutual successor Johann Sebastian Bach.