Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri Purcell Quartet, Emma Kirkby, Elin Manahan Thomas, Michael Chance, Charles Daniels, Peter Harvey, Fretwork

• Dietrich Buxtehude (1637 - 1707): Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: I. Ad pedes:
• 1 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: I. Ad pedes. Sonata 00:44
• 2 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: I. Ad pedes. Ecce super montes (Tutti) 01:14
• 3 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: I. Ad pedes. Salve mundi salutare (Sopranos I & II, Bass) 05:00
• 4 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: I. Ad pedes. Ecce super montes (Tutti) [II] 01:17
• 5 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: I. Ad pedes. Salve mundi salutare (Tutti) 01:00
• Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: II. Ad genua:
• 6 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: II. Ad genua. Sonata in trumulo 01:04
• 7 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: II. Ad genua. Ad ubera portabimini (Tutti) 01:34
• 8 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: II. Ad genua. Salve Jesu, rex sanctorum (Tenor, Alto, Soprano, Bass) 03:45
• 9 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: II. Ad genua. Ad ubera portabimini (Tutti) [II] 01:40
• Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: III. Ad Manus:
• 10 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: III. Ad Manus. Sonata 00:57
• 11 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: III. Ad Manus. Quid sunt plagae istae (Tutti) 01:59
• 12 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: III. Ad Manus. Salve Jesu, pastor bone (Sopranos I & II, Alto, Tenor, Bass) 05:08
• 13 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: III. Ad Manus. Quid sunt plagae istae (Tutti) [II] 02:15
• Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: IV. Ad Iatus:
• 14 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: IV. Ad Iatus. Sonata 00:27
• 15 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: IV. Ad Iatus. Surge, amica mea, speciosa mea (Tutti) 01:45
• 16 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: IV. Ad Iatus. Slavae latus salvatoris (Sopranos I & II, Alto, Tenor, Bass) 04:41
• 17 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: IV. Ad Iatus. Surge, amica mea, speciosa mea (Tutti) [II] 01:59
• Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: V. Ad pectus:
• 18 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: V. Ad pectus. Sonata 00:41
• 19 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: V. Ad pectus. Sicut modo geniti infantes rationabiles (Alto, Tenor, Bass) 02:21
• 20 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: V. Ad pectus. Salve, salus mea, Deus (Alto, Tenor, Bass) 05:21
• 21 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: V. Ad pectus. Sicut modo geniti infantes rationabiles (Alto, Tenor, Bass) [II] 02:41
• Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: VI. Ad cor:
• 22 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: VI. Ad cor. Sonata 01:48
• 23 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: VI. Ad cor. Vulnerasti cor meum (Sopranos I & II, Bass) 02:22
• 24 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: VI. Ad cor. Summi Regis cor, aveto (Sopranos I & II, Bass) 03:05
• 25 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: VI. Ad cor. Vulnerasti cor meum (Sopranos I & II, Bass) [II] 02:29
• Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: VII. Ad faciem:
• 26 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: VII. Ad faciem. Sonata 00:51
• 27 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: VII. Ad faciem. Illustra faciem tuam super servum tuum (Tutti) 01:48
• 28 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: VII. Ad faciem. Salve, caput cruentatum (Alto, Tenor, Bass) 03:52
• 29 Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75: VII. Ad faciem. Amen (Tutti) 01:26
• Dietrich Buxtehude:
• 30 Buxtehude: Laudate, pueri, Dominum, BuxWV 69 04:57
• Matthias Weckmann (1616 - 1674):
• 31 Weckmann: Kommer her zu mir alle 08:43
• Total Runtime 01:18:54

Info for Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri

This release from Chandos’ early music label, Chaconne, focuses on Buxtehude’s seven cantatas, collectively known as Membra Jesu nostri. These are among Buxtehude’s best-known works, and perfectly exemplify the seventeenth-century preference for musical structures that are broadly symmetrical, but subtly varied in detail. Each of the seven cantatas has roughly the same shape: Biblical passages are set for the whole ensemble and enclose stanzas from the mediaeval poem Rhythmica oratio, which are set as arias for reduced vocal forces and interspersed with instrumental ritornelli.

Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu nostri takes the form of a sequence of seven meditations on the crucified body of Jesus, beginning with the feet (‘Ad pedes’), followed by the knees (‘Ad genua’), the hands (‘Ad manus’), the side (‘Ad latus’), the breast (‘Ad pectus’), the heart (‘Ad cor’), and the face (‘Ad faciem’). As such, the work is written from the perspective of a penitent kneeling at the foot of the cross and gradually extending his gaze upwards, meditating on each part of the body in turn. The keys chosen for the cantatas seem to have added symbolic meaning. As the gaze rises, they move from flats to sharps, from C minor to E minor, before finally returning to the opening key to produce a beautifully unified cycle.

On this release the cantata cycle is complemented by Matthias Weckmann’s Kommet her zu mir alle, a setting of the words from St Matthew’s Gospel (11: 28 – 30), in which the composer gives the words of Jesus to a virtuoso bass singer with an impressive range of nearly two octaves, a part here performed by Peter Harvey, and provides him with an accompaniment of two violins, three bass viols, and continuo.

The works on this disc are performed by an excellent ensemble of early music specialists. As exclusive artists, The Purcell Quartet is today popularising the cantatas of Buxtehude in concerts and recordings involving a fabulous quartet of soloists – Emma Kirkby,Michael Chance, Charles Daniels, and Peter Harvey – to which, for the occasion, the group is joined by the soprano Elin Monahan Thomas. The Quartet has also recorded a huge range of music exclusively for Chandos, including works by Purcell, Corelli, Lawes, Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Weckmann, Buxtehude, Leclair, Schütz, Couperin, and Biber, to outstanding critical and public acclaim. The early music specialists Fretwork, the viol ensemble, also performs on this recording.

“…Sopranos Emma Kirkby and Elin Manahan Thomas are excellent throughout…Harvey is a solid, dignified presence elsewhere as well, while tenor Charles Daniels and countertenor Michael Chance are at their eloquent best… Both The Purcell Quartet and Fretwork relish the variegated sonorities afforded by Buxtehude’s score, as well as the word painting, while blending with the voices to effect a homogenous yet multi-timbred sound of great beauty.” (Robert Levett, International Record)

Purcell Quartet
Emma Kirkby, soprano
Elin Manahan Thomas, soprano
Michael Chance, counter-tenor
Charles Daniels, tenor
Peter Harvey, bass
Ensemble Fretwork

The Purcell Quartet
celebrated twenty years of music making with friends and collaborators at the Wigmore Hall in 2004. The group has appeared all over the world, including North and South America and all the countries of Europe, and for over ten years has been a regular visitor to Japan, touring extensively with fully staged performances of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea and Orfeo. The Quartet has played at most of the major festivals in the United Kingdom, recorded extensively for the BBC, and toured with the Early Music Network. Recently, the members have concentrated on the works of J.S. Bach and Dietrich Buxtehude. They have presented several sell-out Wigmore Hall recitals of the early cantatas of Bach and then recorded these works for Chandos. They are also popularising the cantatas of Buxtehude with concerts and recordings involving their fabulous quartet of soloists – Emma Kirkby, Michael Chance, Charles Daniels and Peter Harvey. The Purcell Quartet has recorded a huge range of music exclusively for Chandos, including works by Purcell, Corelli, Lawes, Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Weckmann, Buxtehude, Leclair, Schütz, Couperin and Biber, to outstanding critical and public acclaim.

Fretwork
Few other ensembles can match the range of Fretwork’s repertory, spanning as it does the first printed music of 1501 in Venice, to music commissioned by the group this year. Their recordings of arrangements of J. S. Bach have won particular praise, but they have recently issued a disc containing music by Grieg, Debussy, Shostakovitch, Warlock & Britten. This extraordinary breadth of music has taken them all over the world in the 25 years since their debut, and their recordings of the classic English viol repertory – Purcell, Gibbons, Lawes & Byrd – have become the benchmark by which others are judged. Their 2009 recording of the Purcell Fantazias won the Gramophone Award for Baroque Chamber Music.

The consistently high standards they have achieved have brought music old and new to audiences hitherto unfamiliar with the inspiring sound-world of the viol.

Booklet for Buxtehude: Membra Jesu nostri