Monday, March 30, 2026

An Hour of High Baroque Music

Good morning! Here is a one-hour selection of High Baroque chamber and vocal music. We open with Johann Adam Reincken's Partita No. 6 from his Hortus Musicus, music that so impressed the young Johann Sebastian Bach that he arranged several of Reincken's themes for harpsichord. Then Buxtehude's festive Magnificat anima mea in a radiant performance by Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir.

A rare sacred concerto by Johann Rosenmüller follows, a composer who blended German gravity with Venetian colour like no other. Georg Muffat's Sonata III from Armonico Tributo, a work that masterfully fuses French, Italian and German styles. The playlist closes with two works by Johann Pachelbel: a jubilant cantata and suites from his Musikalische Ergötzung, along with the familiar Canon and Gigue.

Programme

1. Johann Adam Reincken — Hortus Musicus, Partita No. 6
2. Dietrich Buxtehude — Magnificat anima mea
3. Johann Rosenmüller — Bleibe bei uns
4. Georg Muffat — Armonico Tributo, Sonata III
5. Johann Pachelbel — Cantata · Musikalische Ergötzung · Canon

▶ Open playlist in Spotify · 1 hour

· · ·

Johann Adam Reincken

1623 – 1722

Hortus Musicus — Partita No. 6 in A major (1687)

Recorded: November 1995

Les Cyclopes: Thierry Maeder (violin) · Bibiane Lapointe (violin) · Brian Feehan (violin) · Manfred Kraemer (violin) · Laura Johnson (viola da gamba) · Guido Balestracci (viola da gamba)

• Sonata
• Allemand
• Courant
• Saraband
• Gigue

Dietrich Buxtehude

c. 1637 – 1707

Magnificat anima mea, Domine, BuxWV Anh. 1

Recorded: 2006 – 2007

Bettina Pahn, Johannette Zomer (soprano) · Bogna Bartosz, Patrick van Goethem, Daniel Taylor (alto) · Jörg Dürmüller, Andreas Karasiak (tenor) · Donald Bentvelsen, Klaus Mertens (bass)
Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir · Ton Koopman, conductor

• Magnificat anima mea, Domine

Johann Rosenmüller

1619 – 1684

Bleibe bei uns, denn es will Abend werden

Recorded: 2021

Ensemble 1684 · Gregor Meyer, conductor

• Bleibe bei uns, denn es will Abend werden

Georg Muffat

1653 – 1704

Armonico Tributo — Sonata III (1682)

Recorded: August 2020

Concerto Copenhagen · Lars Ulrik Mortensen, director

• I. Grave – Allegro
• II. Corrente
• III. Adagio
• IV. Gavotta
• V. Rondeau

Johann Pachelbel

1653 – 1706

Halleluja! Lobet den Herrn in seinem Heiligtum

Recorded: 2004

La Capella Ducale · Musica Fiata · Roland Wilson, conductor

• Lobet den Herrn in seinem Heiligtum

Musikalische Ergötzung — Suite in C major, P. 374 (c. 1691)

Recorded: 2016

Gli Incogniti · Amandine Beyer, director

• I. Sonata
• II. Aria
• III. Treza
• IV. Ciacona

Canon & Gigue, P. 37 (c. 1680)

Recorded: 2016

Gli Incogniti · Amandine Beyer, director

• I. Canon a 3 Violinis con Basso c.
• II. Gigue

Image & Context

Laurent de La Hyre (1606–1656)
Allegory of Music, 1649 · Oil on canvas, 105 × 142 cm
One of a series of seven allegories on the Liberal Arts, likely a replica of the version held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
La Hyre painted this work during the height of French Baroque classicism — the same decades that saw Reincken and Buxtehude establishing the North German organ school.

Image courtesy: Galerie Jean-François Heim, Basel