Membra Jesu Nostri
and other music by
Dietrich Buxtehude (1637–1707)

Nimm von uns, Herr du treuer Gott (BuxWV 207)

Missa Brevis (BuxWV 114)
            Kyrie
            Gloria

Intermission

Membra Jesu Nostri (BuxWV 75)

Cantata I: Ad pedes
             Sonata – Concerto à 5 –Aria – Aria – Aria – Concerto da capo

Cantata II: Ad genua
             Sonata (in tremulo) – Concerto à 5 –Aria – Aria – Aria – Concerto da capo

Cantata III: Ad manus
             Sonata – Concerto à 5 –Aria – Aria – Aria – Concerto da capo

Cantata IV: Ad latus
             Sonata – Concerto à 5 –Aria – Aria – Aria – Concerto da capo

Cantata V: Ad pectus
             Sonata – Concerto à 3 –Aria – Aria – Aria – Concerto da capo

Cantata VI: Ad cor
             Sonata – Concerto à 3 –Aria – Aria – Aria – Concerto da capo

Cantata VII: Ad faciem
             Sonata – Concerto à 5 –Aria – Aria – Aria – Concerto da capo

Christopher Jackson, conductor & organ

Les Voix Baroques
Suzie LeBlanc & Catherine Webster, soprano
Matthew White, countertenor
Colin Balzer, tenor
Nathaniel Watson, baritone

Les Voix Humaines
Scott Metcalfe & Chloe Meyers, violin
Margaret Little, treble & bass viols
Elin Söderström, tenor viol
Mélisande Corriveau, bass viol
Susie Napper, bass viol & ’cello
Pierre Cartier, violone
Lucas Harris, theorbo

Purchase Tickets: $64, $49, $38, $25

Program Notes

Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri
Performed by Les Voix Humaines

The lofty figure of Dietrich Buxtehude dominated the world of German music in the second half of the 17th century. He was probably born in 1637 in Helsingborg, then in Danish territory. His father, an organist and schoolmaster, was his first music teacher. Several years later he may have studied at Hamburg with Heinrich Scheidemann, who in turn had been a student of Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. In 1668, after some time as organist at the Marienkirche first in his native city and then in Elsinore, Buxtehude took over from Franz Tunder—by marrying Tunder’s youngest daughter—as organist at the Marienkirche of Lübeck, a city on the Baltic sea and a member of the Hanseatic League. He remained in this post until his death in 1707. To the various functions required by this job, Buxtehude soon added the organization of Abendmusiken, evening concerts of sacred music given on the five Sundays between Saint Martin’s Day (November 11) and Christmas, as well as the training of numerous students. In 1705, Johann Sebastian Bach paid a visit to the old master, who was then nearly 70 years old. The young Bach derived great benefit from this visit. He had planned to spend a month in Lübeck but he ended up spending four months with the man who was then considered to be the greatest composer in Northern Europe.

In 1680, Buxtehude sent to his friend Gustav Düben the manuscript, noted in tablature, of Membra Jesu Nostri patientis sanctissima, a title that can be translated, literally, as “The Very Holy Body Parts of our Suffering Lord Jesus.” Düben was conductor of the Swedish court orchestra and the two musicians had been exchanging letters for a dozen years, though we do not know if they ever met. As part of his work, Düben assembled what was to become an important collection of scores by various authors (now conserved at the University of Uppsala), including more than 100 by Buxtehude, which would otherwise have surely been lost.

Harking back to an old tradition of venerating Christ’s passion, the Membra Jesu Nostri assembled seven cantatas, each of which was addressed to one part of the body of Jesus as he was being tortured on the cross. Arranged from bottom to top, they are the feet, knees, hands, side, chest, heart, and face. The work’s libretto is borrowed from Salve mundi salutare, a long Medieval poem, traditionally believed to be the work of Bernard de Clairvaux. Other than the canto addressed to Christ’s side, which is still attributed to Bernard, recent research has shown that most of the text is from the pen of Arnulf van Leuven, a Cistercian monk who died in 1250, while the canto on the heart is an extract from a sequence written by Hermann Joseph von Steinfeld, a Premonstratensian monk. This intensely devotional text was very popular in 17th-century Germany, as the number of editions it went through both in Latin and in German translation shows. The version that Buxtehude almost surely used was that published in Hamburg in 1633 under the title D[omini] Bernhardi Oratio rhythmica.

For each of his seven cantatas the composer has chosen three verses, the first of which begins, each time, with the salutation “Salve.” He introduces each three-verse section with a setting of a short extract from the Bible—from the Prophets, Psalms, or Song of Songs—in keeping with the theme of the cantata. This introduction is treated as a choral concerto in three to five parts; that is, as a movement in free, concertato style for voices and instruments. The work calls for accompaniment by two violins, but to emphasize the symbolic importance of the heart of Jesus, the sixth cantata replaces the violins with an ensemble of four viols. After an introductory sonata, these concertos alternate imitative sections and homophonic passages. The three verses of the poem follow, each assigned to one or several voices and usually with the same thematic material; these are treated as strophic airs with ritornelli on the violins (or viols). One could just as well consider the whole work as comprising a single air, with different voices for each of its sections. In the last verses of the fifth, sixth, and seventh cantatas, the instruments remain present accompanying the voices.

On the manuscript the composer has indicated that Membra Jesu Nostri should be sung “with the most humble devotion and from the bottom of the heart.” We do not know whether he intended the seven cantatas for a single religious rite, probably that of Good Friday, or if each cantata was to be used separately on each of the holy days starting with Palm Sunday. In transcribing the cantatas from tablature to ordinary notation, Düben noted that the sixth cantata was suitable for Passion Sunday, and the first, “for Easter or any other time.” But the cycle of linked keys and the great final Amen suggest a performance similar to that given, a century later, to Haydn’s The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross: its movements were performed on Good Friday in alternation with the spoken sections of the liturgy used in the Cathedral of Cadiz.

The exceptional value of Buxtehude’s organ work has long been well known; it is rated in importance second only to that of J. S. Bach. But, in the opinion of Carl de Nys, it is “actually less original relative to what was being produced then than Buxtehude’s vocal work.” Buxtehude’s vocal work is indeed much less well-known than his organ work, and though we can quibble with de Nys’ opinion, it is clear that the cycle Membra Jesu Nostri remains on the summit of Lutheran sacred music.

© François Filiatrault, 2007
Translated by Sean McCutcheon

Listen to Cantate IV: Ad Cor

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