Nicolaus Bruhns was a German Baroque composer, organist, and violinist, born in December 1665 in Schwabstedt, Schleswig, and died on 29 March 1697 in Husum, Schleswig. He is regarded as one of the principal representatives of the North German organ tradition and was a pupil of Dieterich Buxtehude. Though his life was short, he achieved notable fame during his lifetime as a virtuoso musician and left an important mark on the development of organ art.
Bruhns came from a family of musicians in Schleswig-Holstein. His grandfather Paul was a lutenist and musician at the chapel of Duke Frederick III of Gottorf, and his father Paul Bruhns was organist in Schwabstedt, where he had married the daughter of his predecessor. Nicolaus received his first musical instruction from his father and quickly mastered the organ, also composing promising works for keyboard and voice while still young. At the age of sixteen he went to Lübeck to study violin and viola with his uncle Peter, becoming the youngest member of the city’s violinists and gaining a reputation for exceptional playing.
In Lübeck he also became a favored student of Dieterich Buxtehude, studying composition and refining his organ playing. With Buxtehude’s support, he later obtained employment in Copenhagen, likely serving as a court violinist and composer as well as deputy organist, and may have appeared in evening concerts and at the royal court. During his stay, between March and September 1685, he was arrested under unclear circumstances and was only released after repeated efforts involving high-ranking officials.
Following the death of the previous organist in Husum, the city council sought out Bruhns in 1689, already aware of his growing reputation. After an audition on 29 March, he was appointed organist unanimously, the council reportedly declaring that no one in the city had previously heard such mastery in composition and performance on all kinds of instruments. Soon after taking the post, he married Anna Dorothea Hesse. A few months later he was offered a position at St. Nicholas Church in Kiel, but Husum retained him by promising a substantial salary increase. When that increase was later disputed, Bruhns appealed successfully to the Duke of Gottorf.
Bruhns remained city organist of Husum from 1689 until his death. He worked with the church choir and for a period collaborated with the local cantor, known for his bass voice. He died prematurely at the age of thirty-one from tuberculosis, according to church records, and was buried on 2 April 1697, though the location of his grave has since been lost. He had five children, two of whom died in infancy, and after his death the surviving children were taken into the care of his brother-in-law.
As a performer, Bruhns was admired far beyond Husum as a virtuoso on both organ and violin. Contemporary reports credited him with the extraordinary ability to play the violin while simultaneously accompanying himself on the organ pedals, and perhaps even singing at the same time, creating the effect of several musicians performing together. He was celebrated for his expressive and technically brilliant style, including a violin technique capable of sustaining chords. During his lifetime he was known above all as an organist, and his artistry was later highly praised by Johann Sebastian Bach, according to Bach’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel.
All surviving compositions by Bruhns appear to date from his Husum years, from 1689 to 1697. No autographs survive, and his music is known through later copies, many in tablature. Only four complete organ works remain—three preludes and a chorale fantasia—along with twelve sacred cantatas; his chamber music has been lost. Among the best known are the large and small E minor Preludes, the Prelude in D major, and the chorale fantasia on “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland.” His organ works show the characteristic features of the North German organ style, including contrasts between prelude and fugue, arpeggios, echoes, bold harmony, intricate rhythms, and virtuosic passagework. His famous large Prelude in E minor is especially associated with the stylus phantasticus and is considered his most iconic organ composition.
In his cantatas, Bruhns combined elements of the sacred concerto with madrigalian writing, treating voices and instruments as a unified expressive whole. Some works emphasize instrumental writing, others greater vocal independence, and several include fugual sections integrating both. His vocal music can be divided into through-composed concertos and multi-sectional concertos using devices such as ritornellos, arias, duets, trios, and choruses. The scoring suggests he generally worked with modest local forces, often a five-part string ensemble with continuo. Surviving sacred cantatas include Die Zeit meines Abschieds ist vorhanden, Der Herr hat seinen Stuhl im Himmel bereitet, Jauchzet dem Herren, alle Welt, Wohl dem, der den Herren fürchtet, Ich liege und schlafe, Muss nicht der Mensch, O werter heil’ger Geist, Hemmt eure Tränenflut, and Erstanden ist der heilige Christ. Despite the small surviving body of work, Bruhns is remembered as a musician of exceptional imagination and virtuosity whose music influenced later generations.
Connections
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