Magnificat primi Toni di Dietr. Buxtehude [BuxWV 203]
  Agricola MS

( Johann Friedrich Agricola, Leipzig?, ca 1740)

This work is sometimes classified among Buxtehude’s ‘chorale fantasias’ (a modern term in any case), but it eschews coloratura writing, echoes, and indeed any obligatory use of two manuals, all of which are characteristic of the paradigm set forth by Scheidemann and found in Buxtehude’s ‘Gelobet seist du’ and ‘Nun freut euch’. Instead the Magnificat is much more akin to Buxtehude’s toccatas or some praeludia, which in turn – in this case particularly – are rather like some of his instrumental sonatas (especially if we imagine the harpsichordist improvising transitions between some sections of those sonatas). The piece is nevertheless built around the first Magnificat tone, whose two intonations and two cadences underlie many, perhaps most, of the themes treated in the course of the work, and repercussions of whose reciting-note also appear.

While it has become de rigueur to change stops, sometimes quite radically, for each of the many sections of a piece like this, I increasingly find such a practice unconvincing both logistically and musically: after all, in a comparable chamber sonata, the instrumentation does not change; even in Buxtehude’s more elaborate concerted vocal works, perhaps the biggest contrast might be the presence or absence of trumpets and drums. In a work like the present one that is so sectionalized and is characterized by so many contrasting textures, even a two- or three-manual registration plan that fits the music is hard to devise. Accordingly, the present recording was made with a single registration throughout, consisting of the remarkably string-like combination of Principal and Vox humana in the manual, supported by the Pedal Trompete. It is worth noting that a Vox humana was one of two or three stops Buxtehude finally had added to the large organ in the Marienkirche near the end of his life, after more than one unsuccessful attempt to have Schnitger rebuild the instrument. Perhaps he had something like this in mind.

Magnificat 1mi Toni... |  [BuxWV 204]

di Dietrich Buxtehude Organ.| in Lübeck 
  Dröbs Ms/2

( Johann Andreas Dröbs, Central German, ca 1800)

In the unique substantive source, Magnificats on the first and ninth (peregrinus) tones are found in succession, under one main heading. A subsequent heading reiterating ‘Noni toni’ is found before a passage in 3/2 time, but it has been convincingly argued that this passage belongs with the Magnificat primi toni, BuxWV 204, rather than the Magnificat noni toni, BuxWV 205, as it is based upon the final cadence of the first tone rather than that of the ninth. Indeed this passage forms a very satisfying and even compelling conclusion to this short work. The argument made above for a single-registration performance of BuxWV 203 notwithstanding, in this case, given the three clear sections, I have chosen a strategy using three manual divisions in turn.
program notes
