Buxtehude’s anthology and some of the most beautiful pages of North German repertory.

This CD gives a glimpse into the rich musical world of Dieterich Buxtehude and his contemporaries. These composers were active as Kapellmeisters and wrote music specifically to be performed during the concerts known as Abendmusiken or for various Collegia Musica. They were also associated with the Hamburg or North German School of the seventeenth century.

For this first recording, Andrea Buccarella explores the history of the most emblematic form of Baroque music, from its appearance in Italy at the end of the sixteenth century right up to its apotheosis in Johann Sebastian Bach: the toccata. With its inventiveness, its formal freedom, its contrasting effects of virtuosity and emotion, the Italian toccata – whose name probably comes from the verb toccare (to touch/play) – opened the way for the stylus fantasticus that was to dominate Germany in the late seventeenth century.

Joseph Kelemen is one of the most renowned organists of our time and has recorded quite a number of CDs for OehmsClassics. In this box, the label presents the recordings of the North German organ masters Vincent Lübeck, Matthias Weckmann, Nicolaus Bruhns, Heinrich Scheidemann, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck and the Praetorius “Family”.