D. Buxtehude Complete Organ Works

Following the approach adopted for J. S. Bach, OrganScore presents the complete organ works of Buxtehude in three large-format volumes. The ordering of the pieces follows the BuxWV (Buxtehude Werke Verzeichnis, compiled by Georg Karstadt). The first two volumes are devoted to works in free style, while the third is dedicated to chorale-based pieces.

The Problem of Sources

Editing Buxtehude’s organ works is a delicate task, as no manuscript in the composer’s own hand has survived. The editor must therefore rely solely on non-autograph copies, most of which date from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These manuscripts—generally written in modern notation and sometimes in organ tablature (almost certainly like the originals)—are in many cases copies of copies and are affected by numerous errors, including:

• missing notes,
• confusion between voices,
• incorrect pitch relationships,
• errors in accidentals,
• misplaced barlines, and so forth.

In many passages, the musical text is so corrupted or inconsistent that it must be reconstructed. This can only be achieved by conjecture—that is, by making an informed judgement as to the nature of the transcription errors that may have occurred. Consequently, no modern or historical edition of Buxtehude’s organ works can legitimately claim to preserve an entirely authentic text.

Editorial Work

The OrganScore edition is the result of an editorial approach based both on a close examination of the editions by Philipp Spitta and Max Seiffert (1876, 1901 and 1939) and on a systematic study of all the original manuscript sources known to date.

Given the editorial choices involved, there is of course room for criticism or disagreement. For this reason, each volume includes a detailed critical apparatus with numerous musical examples. Even non-French-speaking readers can easily verify the content of the original manuscripts, compare it with the Spitta edition, and understand the decisions that led to the establishment of the definitive musical text of this edition.

The works are distributed across three volumes and arranged according to the BuxWV catalogue numbers. As with all OrganScore editions, the organist can perform directly from the score without page-turning difficulties, benefiting from excellent readability (see the page on the readability of OrganScore scores).

VOLUME I
19 Præludiums : BuxWV [136 … 154].

VOLUME II
5 Toccatas, 2 Ciacconas, Passacaglia, Praeambulum, 2 Præludiums, 8 Canzonas, 3 Fugues : BuxWV [155 … 176], 225.

VOLUME III
Chorals : BuxWV [177 … 224], 76.