Among the many new
recordings of Buxtehude’s organ music
coinciding with the anniversary of his
death, a new series by Ton Koopman has
attracted considerable attention.
Ton Koopman has recorded
Buxtehude before; I have in my collection
a CD made in Norden for Novalis, now
more than 15 years old. It stands out,
alongside the maverick recording by
Lena Jacobson for Deutsche Harmonia
Mundi, as among the most dissident performances
of the repertoire ever committed to
disc. Koopman indeed commented in a
1991 article for the Musical Times that,
in order to perform Buxtehude, one had
to "take the risk to be dissident".
In the notes for the present releases
he continues along the same theme, citing
the stylus phantasticus as justification
for a playing style employing the "greatest
possible creativity" and requiring
a "macho playing style". In
short Koopman, rather than taking the
risk to be dissident was, and remains,
at least as far as his organ playing
is concerned, a dissident by profession.
The continued hyper-activity
typical of Koopman’s playing, and its
lack of development since that first
Norden recording, is for me the most
frustrating aspect of these beautifully
presented discs, and belies, in my opinion,
a fundamental misunderstanding. The
stylus phantasticus is, surely, a way
of composing, and not a way of performing.
The text often quoted, in order to support
the latter theory is that by Mattheson
in his Vollkommene Capellmeister of
1739. However, Mattheson’s description
of the style is confused to the extent
that he also famously states that "those
composers who work out formal fugues
in their Toccatas or Fantasias have
no proper concept of this noble style".
Given that Mattheson was at the centre
of the 18th century North
German organ art, it is difficult to
apply his theories to Buxtehude’s music,
given that the latter’s Praeludia are
full of fugues. The Dutch musicologist
Pieter Dirksen commented in a recent
essay that Mattheson’s description merely
reflects, "his rather disorganised
quest for encyclopaedic theories".
The most obvious musical
problem here, regarding the free works
at any rate, is that of the proportio.
Any performance of Buxtehude’s free
works should, in my opinion, reflect
the information given by the notation,
especially regarding the relationship
between the time signatures at each
new section of the piece. If one leaves
all to whimsy, as Koopman seems to do
in his quest for "emotion, fantasy
and contrast", the essential structure
of the music is lost.
Koopman’s fast tempi
and violently over-active ("macho?")
touch have two, perhaps even more important,
and unfortunate consequences. Firstly
the lack of variety of affects is
frustrating, especially in a work of
the duration of the Nun freut euch
lieben Christen g'mein Fantasia
for example. Secondly, and for me most
disturbingly is the fact that the organs
sound unpleasant. This is especially
regrettable given the provenance and
quality of these instruments. The Altenbruch
organ is the work of Johann Hinrich
Klapmeyer, built in 1728 and incorporating
a large amount of earlier pipework from,
among others, Johann Coci (1498) and
Hans Christoph Fritzsche (1647), while
the Lüdingworth organ is the work
of Arp Schnitger no less, incorporating
significant material by Antonius Wilde
(1599). Both organs are housed in difficult
dry acoustics, a circumstance which
Koopman’s playing exacerbates.
Despite this overwhelmingly
negative review, I must put my cards
on the table and state my enormous admiration
for Koopman the musician. His keyboard
playing 2 decades ago was refreshingly
different, an almost necessary counterpoint
to much early music performance of the
time. For me his Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra
is the best in the business; I was fortunate
soon after moving to the Netherlands
to attend some of the final concerts
of their Bach cantata project, marvellously
impressive. Even some of his Bach organ
cycle for Teldec is, for my ears, uniquely
wonderful, especially his Sei gegruesset
partita recorded in Ottobeuren, and
parts of his Clavierübung III from
Freiberg.
Unfortunately though,
this Buxtehude recording is too dissident,
macho and ultimately eccentric to be
considered as anything other than an
interesting side-show to one or other
of the other cycles already available,
or in progress.
Chris Bragg
for details 
Ton Koopman (organ) 
