Sometimes it seems as if Dietrich Buxtehude (ca. 1637-1707) - the great North German composer and organist who forms the link between Sweelinck and Bach - is only remembered for the fact that Bach, as a young man of 20, walked from Arnstadt to Lübeck, a distance of more than 400 kilometers, to hear the outstanding resident organist of the Marienkirche play and "to understand a thing or two about his art. In fact, Bach studied with him for several months. In other years, other great composers such as Handel, Matheson, and Telemann made the same pilgrimage to Lübeck.
Dietrich Buxtehude wrote a wide variety of music - from beautiful works for harpsichord to masterpieces for organ and, most importantly, 100 vocal compositions. He also began a series of concerts separate from church services, called Abendmusik, to provide musical entertainment for the city's bourgeoisie. Buxtehude's style greatly influenced other composers (such as Bach), and he is considered one of the most important composers of the mid-Baroque period in Germany.
Compared to Bach, Buxtehude's style has an essential simplicity, especially in his cantatas: understated, elegant, and all the more beautiful for it (though he didn't write the unforgettable melodies of Bach at his best). His surviving church music is praised for its high musical qualities rather than its progressive elements.
Buxtehude's most famous vocal work, Membra Jesu Nostri, a cycle of seven cantatas from 1680, is strange music, or rather the idea behind the music is strange: music about the different parts of the body of the crucified Christ, namely the feet, knees, hands, side, chest, heart, and head. The music is in good taste, but the (Latin) lyrics sometimes border on necrophilia...
The full Latin title, Membra Jesu nostri patientis sanctissima, means "The most holy parts of the suffering (body) of our Jesus. The text consists of stanzas from the medieval hymn Salve mundi salutare, a poem once attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux but probably written by Arnulf of Louvain (d. 1250). Buxtehude selected three stanzas from the poem for each part and added an appropriate biblical text for the concertos.
Each cantata in Membra Jesu Nostri is divided into six sections: an instrumental introduction; a concerto for instruments and five voices (SSATB), except for the fifth and sixth cantatas, which use only three voices; three arias for one or three voices, each followed by an instrumental ritornello; and an exact reprise of the concerto. In the last cantata, a final Amen chorus replaces the reprise.
The mood is quiet and contemplative, in contrast to the usual passion narrative. It has the clear emotional intensity found in Lutheran chorales. But the sensitive textual setting also shows a debt to the expressive power of Venetian music.
This work might well be called the first Lutheran oratorio.
See this Wikipedia page for the text.
Listen to a performance by Schola Cantorum Basiliensis conducted by René Jacobs:
As a bonus, here is Buxtehude's most beautiful soprano aria, from the cantata "Herr, wenn Ich nur Dich Hab'", sung by Laura Heimes, with Voices of Music:
Choral Masterworks