Actually, it's not exactly true that my journey with Buxtehude started with music from the Broadway hit musical Hamilton.
About 16 years ago, a friend and music colleague approached me with the idea of putting together a small ensemble to perform cantatas by Buxtehude. While not able to join the group initially, I was able to collaborate with them in a wonderful program during the summer of 2009. We had a wonderful small consort, one on a part (including singers), and I reveled in this new repertoire and its associated performance practice.
Over the previous years, my interests in early music had grown, partially due to a new understanding in our field of historically informed performance (HIP), and of course wonderful new instruments in the US on which to play.
I had begun organ lessons as a teenager in the 70s with a man who forbade me to: 1) play mechanical action organs, 2) listen to people who played them, or 3) join the American Guild of Organists. While I didn't grasp just how controlling and toxic this teacher was at the time, I was sufficiently excited about 19th and early 20th century French and German organ compositions, and (conversely) not excited about much of what I did manage to hear of then-current early music performance practice, to complain at the time. (Granted, I wasn't hearing much.)
Fast-forward through music conservatory studies in the familiar post-romantic tradition (with a tiny smidgeon of Buxtehude thrown in, as well as oodles of Bach played on monstrously large symphonic-style organs), graduate studies in which I slowly began to appreciate more classically designed pipe organs and their repertoire, and years of touring on instruments of all types — by my 40s my interests had started to shift significantly. I had actually been a Bach devotee since a child, and made my first Bach transcription in my mid-20s (the Concerto for 2 Violins in D minor), but never personally heard any instruments early on that I thought did him justice. Now I was beginning to spend time with pipe organs that not only taught me how this music wanted to be played, but opened up a whole new world in terms of both touch and tone.
All-professional choirs were coming into being in the US, and there were more and more instrumentalists playing on period instruments, with unequal temperaments that imparted more beauty and color to the music than I had ever imagined possible. I remember the day I finally realized why the modern piano's "klang" bothered me: only completely settling after a few moments into more pure intervals (a phenomenon of physics in which different pitches and their overtones are attracted to each other, drawing each other in.)
The very thing my first organ teacher was dead set against was happening. I had developed a great love for Bach and pre-Bach music played as authentically, and as musically, as possible. Thank God! I was on a mission.
In 2014 I became a faculty member at Dartmouth College, eventually teaching not only organ, but music theory, counterpoint, harmony & analysis, in addition to music appreciation. It was about that time that Lin-Manuel Miranda's phenomenal Hamilton came out, though I was unaware of its existence until one of my grown sons excitedly told me he had purchased a CD for the first time in years. He was passionate about the songs, and on a road trip not long after, he played me the entire album.
I became smitten with everything about the musical, not the least being the songs' compositional structure and details. "Jackie," I excitedly began with my mini-lecture, "You realize he is both channeling the Leit-Motive concept from Wagner's operas, AND creating songs with rhythmically creative variations over ground bass similar to Buxtehude?!" "Why, yes" he retorted, deadpan. "Those are in fact the exact features I picked up on." We laughed and then began a long conversation about the music — and since this guy is a musician with lots of natural ability, curiosity, and insight, the dialogue was mutually rewarding.
In time, I prepared a lecture for my music theory students on the ground bass technique which included not only music of Buxtehude, but Miranda as well. The class enjoyed it, so I decided to expand the lecture for the following years. In time, I did some deep dives into both Miranda's songs as well as more Buxtehude. And in that process, I discovered a treasure: the final movement — a passacaglia — from the latter's Sonata in A minor, BuxWV272 (for Violin, Viola da Gamba, and Continuo.)
This hauntingly beautiful music became one of my go-to tunes, and in some way a touchstone for that period of my life and career. Shortly thereafter I initiated an early music choral group at Dartmouth, and was increasingly specializing in Bach and pre-Bach. Moving to New York to be musical director of the Bach Vespers cantata series at Holy Trinity was a natural extension of these interests and activities, and spending a few weeks in the Netherlands with my new friend and colleague Gwendolyn Toth was further transformative. I was literally playing a different instrument than my entire training and career had been based on.
It was while I was in New York that my seventh invitation came to perform a solo gig for the national convention of the American Guild of Organists. In previous years, I had always been asked to play on a "standard" Late Romantic/Neo-Classic organ, and this time was no exception. At first, the idea was a recital on an Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ, and then a request came that I consider an all-electronic instrument. It was at that point I said to my manager, "You know, John, I'm doing all this Bach and early music these days. Could we ask them to put me on a mechanical action instrument that works for German Baroque music instead?"
The answer, thankfully, was affirmative (1979 John Brombaugh organ in the Dutch/N. German style), and then the question became what I would play. I had by then completed a number of transcriptions for organ of baroque string music, and clearly wanted to do more. I thought about the music I loved best in that idiom, and you-know-what instantly came to mind.
"But that's crazy," I said to myself. By that time I knew the entire Buxtehude sonata well: full of solo passages for both of the featured instruments, totally unlike the trio textures we come to associate with later Baroque composers (some of which Bach transcribed himself.) It wasn't 3 independent parts at all times, easily transformed into left hand, right hand, and pedal. "I would have to create continuo passages for when each instrument has a solo line, jump into trio texture, and sometimes have ripieno passages as well. I think it's doable, but wow what hours of work it will take!"
Long story short, the idea grew on me, and I did some preliminary sketches which convinced me that the project was viable. I submitted my program proposals to the convention leadership, and they accepted the one with the Buxtehude transcription. The only thing left was only (only!!) to flesh it all out — and then, of course, learn to play it. (For the record, I did *not* overestimate the hundreds of hours it would all take!)
This transcription has greatly surpassed my others in terms of its compositional complexity, the need to intelligently adapt idiomatic string writing for keyboard, and in fleshing out the continuo sections with creative counterpoint. It has been one of the greatest joys of the last few years to engage in this work, and to bring it to fruition with its first performance.
I dedicate this week's premiere with special thanks to John & the Buxtehude Consort, Jackie & Lin-Manuel Miranda, my students & singers at Dartmouth, my coaches in early music, Bach Vespers NYC & its wonderful HIP musicians, Gwen and all the marvelous hosts/organs/builders of the Groningen/NW German regions and traditions, and finally to the San Francisco AGO Convention for inviting me to play, and to facilitate this premiere. I am indebted to you all. 💜
Diane Meredith Belcher, June 2024