Das jüngste Gericht
Das jüngste Gericht, BuxWV Anh. 3, is an anonymous 17th-century oratorio in three acts, attributed to Dieterich Buxtehude. It is also known by its incipit, "Wacht! Euch zum Streit gefasset macht".
History
Buxtehude was organist and Werkmeister at the Marienkirche in Lübeck, where he performed his concert series, the Abendmusiken. He possibly performed it as part of the Abendmusiken, a concert series begun by his predecessor, Franz Tunder, and which Buxtehude brought to fame.The work is only preserved in an undated and anonymous set of parts in the Düben collection. There has been much scholarly debate on the subject of the work's authenticity. The work was first identified and attributed to Buxtehude by Willy Maxton in the 1920s. Maxton assessed it as being Das allerschrocklichste und allererfreulichste, an hypothesis which has since been rejected. This was accepted by scholars at the time, including Friedrich Blume who described it as such in the Buxtehude entry for the 1952 edition of Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. However, the authenticity of the work was disputed by Martin Geck, writing in Die Musikforschung, in 1961. This led to the work being included as a doubtful work in the Buxtehude-Werke-Verzeichnis compiled by Georg Karstädt. The question was covered in-depth in a thesis by Sara C. Ruhle in 1982, but this has not led to definitive conclusions. One strong defender of the work's attribution to Buxtehude has been Kerala J. Snyder.