This forum will be presented on Wednesday, April 8 and Monday, May 11.
“Remebering your wounds”: Musical Theology of Christ’s Passion in Dieterich BVuxtehude’s Membra Jesu nostri (1680)
Lutheran composer-organist Dieterich Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu nostri (1680) comprises a cycle of seven Passion cantatas, each a meditation on an isolated body part of the crucified Jesus. Despite today being Buxtehude’s most famous work—and root system of the stylistic lineage that would produce J. S. Bach—the cycle contains a plethora of symbolism that has evaded scrutiny over the centuries since its rediscovery to historians. With this remarkable piece as our laboratory, join musicologist Malachai Komanoff Bandy on an excursion through archival sources and recorded examples, to reattune our eyes and ears to historical ways of thinking about music, meaning, and the bodies that make both—no prior knowledge of Western musical notation or theory required.
