Diderik Buxtehude: Praeludium in G minor BuxWV 163

Gilbert Martinez, clavichord (fretted clavichord by Kevin Spindler, Stonington, Connecticut, after an anonymous instrument , in the Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag) Det Danske Cembalo Menageri (Gilbert Martinez, Artistic Director/Producer) Video and audio by Silvia Falcone: Heptachordum Danicum: The Pathways to Buxtehude Danish composer Diderik Buxtehude (1637/39-1707) is without doubt the greatest organist of his time. His music made a direct influence on his younger admirer, Johann Sebastian Bach. The main focus of Buxtehude scholarship today focuses on his time in the Hanseatic city of Lübeck (1668-1707), where he played one of the largest organs in Europe and attracted many great musicians, including Pachelbel, Reincken, Böhm, Mattheson, Handel, and Bach himself. Det Dansk Cembalo Menageri (“The Danish Harpsichord Menagerie”) is creating a new project, the “Heptachordum Danicum”, named after a music instruction book for choirboys that would have been known to the young Buxtehude whilst growing up in Denmark. This umbrella project seeks to involve scholars, performers, instrument makers and others in multidisciplinary studies of Danish music from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. The flagship project is a series of short videos, “The Pathways To Buxtehude,” which are filmed in two special venues attached to the Sct. Mariæ Kirke in Helsingør, Denmark, where Buxtehude was resident organist from the years 1660-1668. The videos highlight the music room attached to the Carmelite Priory of our Lady, established in 1430. The room is covered with nordic themed frescos depicting musicians. Two of the videos utilize the main Cathedral and the historic organ, built in 1641 by the organ builder Johan Lorenz (1580-1650). The performers of the videos are harpsichordist Gilbert Martinez, a resident of Copenhagen and the Artistic Director of MusicSources, a historic keyboard society based in California, USA, and the esteemed musician Søren Gleerup Hansen, the titular organist of Sct. Mariæ Kirke. The lavish videography is the creation of Silvia Falcone, an emerging young talent and native of Denmark.