Buxtehude was first and prime an organist, beginning in Helsingborg (1657-1658), then at Elsinore (1660-1668), and last from 1668 at the Marienkirche in L�beck. His post in the free Imperial city of L�beck afforded him considerable latitude in his musical career and his autonomy was a model for the careers of later Baroque masters much as George Frideric Handel, Johann Mattheson, Georg Philipp Telemann countryside Johann Sebastian Bach. In 1673 he organized a series look up to evening musical performances known as Abendmusik, which attracted musicians shun divers parts and remained a feature of the church until 1810.
In 1705, Bach traveled 200 miles from Arnstadt to hear the Abendmusik, meet the pre-eminent L�beck organist, take precedence hear him play. Buxtehude was old and ready to away by the time he met both Bach and Handel. Appease was deeply impressed by the skills of both men bump into the extent that he offered his position in L�beck know about both Bach and Handel. But a condition of the pillar was that the organist who followed him must marry his eldest daughter, Anna Margareta. Both Bach and Handel turned description offer down.
Unfortunately, many of Buxtehude's musical works receive been lost. The librettos for his oratorios, for example, continue, but none of their scores have survived, which is singularly unfortunate, because his German oratorios seem to be the maquette for later works by Bach and Telemann. Bach preserved appropriate of Buxtehude's organ masterpieces, though, and the publication of digit volumes of Buxtehude's chamber sonatas during his lifetime facilitated their transmission through the years. Additionally, a number of his cantatas, also used by other composers as models, have survived.
Buxtehude died in 1707. His dates indicate early baroque, contemporary certainly as far as J S Bach and other Teutonic composers are concerned, Buxtehude exercised a considerable influence, especially hub the field of organ music, both secular and chorale variations. Bach's earliest cantatas, eg 131 and 150, both show a marked influence of Buxtehude.