Membra Jesu Nostri

SACD/hybrid pcm, stereo, multichannel. Playable on all compact disc players.

"Magnificent new versions of moving meditations on the crucified Christ. Jos van Veldhoven renders the Membra Jesu nostri fairly hypnotic. Pacing is measured, phrasing tender and moving across the seven cantatas - entirely appropriate for a work which moves up the crucified Jesus's body (with each cantata related to a different body part)."
Editor's Choice Gramophone Magazine (June 2006)

This cycle, which is clearly not intended for liturgical use and dedicated to his friend Gustav Düben, must indubitably be seen as an expression of Buxtehude's own religious experience and personal devotion. In fact, we know unusually little about this great musician; no personal letters or anecdotes have survived. His music speaks to us all the more powerfully - especially the Membra Jesu Nostri, with its highly personal combination of introverted expressivity, deliberately simple declamation (here and there it can even be called naive), and great harmonic richness. No matter how alien the content of the medieval Latin text may be to our 21st-century sensibilities, it nevertheless inspired Buxtehude to produce a visionary setting, in a vivid cycle of compositions which still go straight to our hearts.