Stylus Phantasticus was the name given to a free, imaginative and virtuosic musical style that flourished in northern Germany in the 17th century. The music shifts rapidly between improvisatory passages, striking contrasts and strict contrapuntal sections – almost as if the composer were improvising directly in front of the audience.
The programme features works by Nicolaus Bruhns, Dieterich Buxtehude and Johann Sebastian Bach. Bruhns and Buxtehude represent the height of the northern German organ tradition, while Bach carried this heritage forward and developed it into a musical language entirely his own.
The concert is performed on a claviorganum – a rare historical instrument combining harpsichord and organ in one. It allows for striking contrasts in colour and is particularly well suited to the dramatic and richly varied music of the Stylus Phantasticus.
Ghislain Gourvennec, claviorganum
4 October at 7.00 pm – Stokka Church
