Befiehl dem Engel, BuxWV 10

We begin with one of the many surviving sacred cantatas written by Dietrich Buxtehude, culminating figure of music in 17th-century Germany. Like Bach after him, Buxtehude wrote the majority of his 120 extant cantatas on a week-to-week basis for Lutheran services between roughly 1676 and 1687. His treatment of aria and recitative shows full cognizance of trends in Italian opera, while the concluding “Amen” portions show his training in the rigid, contrapuntal manner of the earlier generations. The single movement of BuxWV 10, “Befiehl dem Engel, daß er komm” lacks recitative—it is so brief; instead, Buxtehude offers a bi-partite AB chorale whose primary internal dividing line is the change from duple to triple meter. Two stanzas (the sixth and seventh) of the advent chorale “Christe, du bist der helle Tag” are set here with a closing Amen.
An instrumental introduction functions much like a sinfonia in opera, setting the mood, tonality (A minor), and principal rhythmic motives. It is brief, as is fitting for this cantata in miniature. Imitative string writing, figuration, echoes, and chains of dissonant suspensions all point to the influence of mid-century Italian violin music. The opening strain of the chorale melody appears in the soprano in steady rhythmic values, while the supporting voice parts are much more active. Homophony and imitation alternate, as do vocal and instrumental passages. These fluctuations in texture help punctuate the text without bringing the music to full stop. After a lengthy instrumental interlude, the call-and-response interaction between voices and instruments is even more literal and pronounced in the second stanza. Buxtehude’s Amen lasts a full one-third of the piece’s duration; elaborate, contrapuntal finishes were typical in such sacred works. Florid concluding Amens, as well as the progression from the duple-meter opening stanza to triple meter for the second stanza, ultimately derive from a cappella motets of the Renaissance.

(c) Jason Stell