Dietrich Buxtehude - Suite in e minor

Wim Winters, clavichord

I played this on organ many, many years ago and once in a while on piano since then (not for performance) along with some of the other Buxtehude suites.  It's virtually certain that Buxtehude wrote the suites and associated variations, etc. in the collection this was found in for a small, fretted clavichord with a short octave in the bass (some of the fingering issues on a modern keyboard make that evident) which was the commonest domestic keyboard instrument in Germany at the time.  J. S. Bach, also wrote many of his pieces in the range that would fit that instruments, including many of his most well known works.  His earliest biographer documents that people who knew him said he favored the clavichord for practice.   His son, C.P.E. Bach as well favored the instrument, though I believe his music is generally for an unfretted instrument with the range of a harpsichord.

Score

Score of the manuscript  in tablature.

This suite, unlike most of the others in the unique tablature containing them, is also known in a lute tablature in which the music is somewhat different.