Buxheimer Orgelbuch

Rune. Lost in Contemplation: Saints and Miracles

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Rune
Lost in Contemplation: Saints and Miracles
St. Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield. 26 May 2026

Rune, the five-strong group specialising in music “from 700 years ago and beyond”, completed a UK tour at their home base of St. Bartholomew the Great in London’s Smithfield, one of the finest medieval buildings in London, where they are Medieval Ensemble in Residence. Their concert was based on four stories of miracles, each illustrated by sequences of music, sacred and secular, ranging from 12th century Occitan Troubadour songs to the 15th century polyphony of Machaut, with birdsong-related and Marian music in between. The four stories were narrated by the members of the group, to the varying degrees of comprehension allowed by the microphone and loudspeaker situation.

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Early Music Day recital: BEFORE BACH programme notes

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Mayfair Organ Concerts – The Grosvenor Chapel
19 March 2024

Early Music Day concert
Andrew Benson-Wilson
BEFORE BACH

Conrad Paumann (c1410-1473) Incipit Fundamentum m.C.p.C;
Magnificat Octavi Toni. 2v
(From the Buxheimer Orgelbuch, c1460)

Hans Buchner (1483-1538) Magnificat anima sexti Toni. 2v

Hieronymus Praetorius (1560-1629) Magnificat Tertii Toni. 3v

Mathias Weckmann (1617-74) Magnificat II. Toni. 4v

Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) Fantasia in G; Three Fugues from the Magnificat tertii Toni

Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654) Benedicamus à 6 Voc.1624

This is the first of two related Early Music Day concerts with the titles of BEFORE BACH and AFTER BACH. The second concert, AFTER BACH, is this Sunday, 24 March at 7.45 in Christ’s Chapel of Alleyn’s College of God’s Gift, 14 Gallery Rd, Dulwich SE21 7AD with music by Stanley, CPE Bach and Corrette. Today’s concert traces German organ music from around 1460 to Bach’s youth, with a focus on music for the service of Vespers, notably the Magnificat, one of the key musical elements of Vespers in both the Catholic and Lutheran traditions.

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Key Notes: Early European Keyboard Music

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Key Notes
Early European Keyboard Music
Corina Marti
Outhere/Ramee RAM 1916. 65’54

Keynotes. Early European Keyboard Music

It is many decades since keyboard music was assumed by many to have started with Bach. This recording offers a chance to explore a little-known repertoire of music for organ and other instruments dating from the medieval period. The recording draws on manuscripts such as the Buxheimer Orgelbuch, Lochamer Liederbuch, Ileborgh Tablature, and the Montpellier, Robertsbridge, Las Huelgas, and Faenza codices. Many of the pieces are arrangements (or intabulations) of pre-existing music by, for example, Pierre des Molins, Giovanni da Firenze, Philippe de Vitry, Francesco Landini and Jacopo da Bologna. The instruments used are a metal-stringed clavisimbalum, a gut-stringed claviciterium, two portative organs and the 1730 organ in Nicolaikirche in Altenbruch in northern Germany which contains pipework from the original 1501 organ.

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