On the eve of Good Friday, the Elbphilharmonie – usually resonant with grandeur – was transformed into a space of intimate spiritual retreat. In the hands of Voces Suaves and Gli Incogniti, Dietrich Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu nostri unfolded not as liturgy, nor spectacle, but as a deeply internal act of musical devotion. The performance moved quietly towards the mystery of the crucified body.
The evening opened with Buxtehude’s Trio Sonata in G major (BuxWV271). Though without the typical instrumental virtuosity or dazzle, the work was performed as a restrained but radiant prelude, glowing from within. Gli Incogniti’s two violinists rendered its alternating solos with such poise and clarity that one felt transported into a finely decorated Lübeck interior – private, resonant and devoted.
Buxtehude’s seven-part cantata cycle, Membra Jesu nostri patientis sanctissima (BuxWV75), is built from feet to face through the wounded body of the crucified Christ. Though not strictly written for liturgical use, the work reflects the devotional ethos of its time: a blending of personal piety and musical texture designed to console and elevate the soul.
In Ad pedes, the ensemble Voces Suaves projected clarity and restraint, favouring textural transparency over dramatics. In Ad manus, the expressive dissonances were never overstated; they flickered like pain remembered rather than suffered anew. The vocal lines floated above Gli Incogniti’s supple support, with musical motifs drifting effortlessly from voice to instrument.
To gently break the potential monotony of seven uninterrupted cantata sections, Gli Incogniti inserted an instrumental interlude: Buxtehude’s Trio Sonata in A minor (BuxWV272), a work of austere elegance. Structured around ostinato bass lines, this sonata revealed another face of contemplation: formal discipline as a path to transcendence. The bass line repeated it four-bar phrase with quiet persistence, like the pulse of a closing prayer.
Most moving were the middle cantatas – Ad pectus and Ad cor – where the scoring narrows down to just three singers. These central movement drew the listener into the spiritual core of the cycle. In Ad cor, the singers seemed to get deep into their devotion with a kind of sonic privacy. The final cantata, Ad faciem, brought back the full five-person ensemble and the minor-mode gravity of Ad pedes, completing the symmetrical arc of the cycle. The final sentence resonated with the inscription Buxtehude left on his manuscript: Soli Deo Gloria. The music did not conclude so much as vanish, one felt invited not to observe the Passion, but to feel its stillness.
This performance did not merely revive a piece of vocal music; it reactivated its spiritual purpose. In a time when religious experience is often estranged from artistic culture, Voces Suaves and Gli Incogniti offered a compelling argument for sacred music as a vessel of introspective truth. Tonight at the Elbphilharmonie, Buxtehude’s vision came to life, not as a relic, but as a living practice of the soul.
