Ton Koopman - Buxtehude: Opera Omnia XV - Chamber Music, Vol. 3 (2012)

Opera Omnia XV is the latest release in the acclaimed cycle of the complete works of Dieterich Buxtehude from the award winning combination of renowned early music specialist Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque. It is the third and final volume to be devoted to the composer's lesser known but highly rewarding chamber music and includes his opus 2 Trio Sonatas. Ton Koopman is one of the world's foremost early music specialists and directors. His recordings of the complete Bach Cantatas on Challenge Classics received worldwide acclaim. In recent years he has undertaken the daunting task of recording all of the music of his compatriot, the early baroque composer Dieterich Buxtehude. As president of the International Dieterich Buxtehude Society, Ton Koopman is considered to be one of the world's leading authorities on his music, and amongst a string of accolades for previous recordings in the series Opera Omnia X was a Gramophone 'Editor's Choice'. Within a period of two years during the last decade of the 17th century the Dutch composer Dieterich Buxtehude published a group of fourteen instrumental chamber sonatas in two sets of seven. The trio sonata had originated in Italy after the middle of the century, but the compositional ideas pursued by Buxtehude are based on the concept of the so-called "stylus fantasticus" which was favoured in keyboard and instrumental ensemble music in North Germany at that time.