Two Baroque Giants – Buxtehude & de Grigny
Andrew Benson-Wilson, organ
The Grosvenor Chapel
South Audley Street, Mayfair, London W1K 2PA
Tuesday 9 August 2020, 1:10

Music by Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707) and Nicolas de Grigny (1672-1703).

Although Buxtehude and de Grigny were born 35 years apart, the music played in this recital was composed at about the same time, around 1690/1700. They were composed for very different social, religious and musical settings, Buxtehude for Lutheran Lübeck, North Germany, and de Grigny for Catholic Reims, France. The organs they played were also very different, but one of the joys of English 17th/18th organs is that they include elements of both the German and the French instruments.

The overriding figure in the music of these two is JS Bach. He knew their music and owned manuscripts of both composers, even adding some of his own ideas to de Grigny’s 1699 Premier livre d’orgue. Bach’s youthful walk to Lübeck to hear the ageing Buxtehude is well known.

Buxtehude
Praeludium in d minor  BuxWV 140
Ciacona in e minor BuxWV 160
de Grigny
from the Premier livre d’orgue (1699)
Recit de Tierce pour le Benedictus
Dialogue de flûtes pour l,’Elevation
Dialogue (Agnus Dei II)
Buxtehude
Te deum laudamus, BuxWV 218

The organ is the 1991 William Drake instrument
http://www.grosvenorchapel.org.uk/music/william-drake-organ/

Admission is free, with a retiring collection.
Part of the Mayfair Organ Concerts series.