With Membra Jesu Nostri, Dietrich Buxtehude creates a musical meditation of rare intensity, in which the harmonic richness of the German Baroque meets the expressive power of medieval texts. In an intimate performance with a small ensemble, Le Consort and Ensemble la Sportelle bring us close to the heart of the composer’s writing, revealing the work’s profound intimacy.

At just 20 years old, Johann Sebastian Bach walked some 400 kilometres to Lübeck to meet Dietrich Buxtehude and study with him for three months. Such was the renown and artistry of this leading figure of the German Baroque, widely regarded as the foremost organist in northern Europe.

Composed in 1680 for his friend Gustav Düben, Membra Jesu Nostri is a deeply personal work, reflecting Buxtehude’s own religious experience. This cycle of seven cantatas was not intended for liturgical use, a freedom reflected in its choice of texts. Some draw on the Passion hymn Salve mundi, salutare, attributed to the poet Arnulf of Leuven and dating from between 1200 and 1250. These fervent, mystical verses unfold across seven meditations on different parts of Christ’s body on the Cross. Instrumental interludes punctuate the cycle, lending the work further depth and variety.

The score itself is remarkable: written in tablature, it records the music through letters and rhythmic symbols rather than conventional notation. To make the work performable, Düben had to transcribe it in its entirety. Although this form of notation, once found in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century organ music, had by then fallen out of use, it remained a shared language between the two friends — almost a secret code.

Le Consort and Ensemble la Sportelle offer an intimate reading of this landmark work, with a small complement of instrumentalists and singers, seeking to draw as close as possible to the personal, inward world of the composer.

A selection of Buxtehude’s instrumental works completes the programme, offering a moving portrait of a composer among the greatest of his age, and of music whose vibrant expressiveness is matched by its extraordinary harmonic richness.