In his lifetime (1637-1707) Dietrich Buxtehude rose to fame in mainland Europe as organist and choirmaster at the Mariankirche, Lubeck. Young musicians travelled there to learn from him – including Bach (who did the 250 mile journey on foot) and Handel, who might have been his successor at Lubeck but for the problem that the job involved marriage to Buxtehude’s daughter. Who was apparently no catch.
In later centuries the music of those younger men eclipsed his own, and he became the stuff of specialists. But he has champions still. And he’s the author of a strange piece that has long caught the imagination of performers around Eastertide: his Membra Jesu nostri patientis sanctissima, or Most Holy Limbs of Our Suffering Jesus.
