| The Renaissance
| | The world famous scientist Tycho Brahe s many trips to Scania, Hven and Copenhagen in the last half of the 16th century is marked example of the intense communication, which existed between the regions. |
Uraniborg in Ven
The renaissance prince Frederik II saw Tycho´s greatness and offered his support. February 18th 1567 he was awarded a yearly sum of 500 daler, a very large governmental support. The king had, during his inspections in the building site of Kronborg, come to think of the island Ven as a suitable place for Tychos activities. Tycho was offered the island on favourable terms, if it could prevent him from leaving Denmark. Tycho Brahe accepted.
A Symbolic Castle
The central part of the ground plan was made up of a square, which measured 60 feet, approximately 15,5 metres on every side. This square was divided by perpendicular corridors, which formed four smaller square rooms. The corridors also tied the central part with symmetrical extensions in the north and south and with symmetrical entrance portals in east and west.
The building consisted of two storeys, attic and basement. On the outside there were balconies, which were used for astronomical observations. The basement functioned as a chemical laboratory.
Astronomy and chemistry/medicine was the sciences he was to engage in and two statuette niches marked this over the entrance portals. Two short Latin inscriptions connected these allegorical works of art: Despiciendo suspicio och Suspiciendo despicio, which roughly means, ”When I look down, I look up” and ”When I look up, I look down”. The first maxim refers to the chemical experiments and the other undoubtedly on the astronomical observations. The deeper meaning is that chemistry and astronomy are connected.
Uranienborg | 
Ground plan |
Uraniborg - a View of Life
Uranienborg was not only Tycho Brahe´s home and workplace, but it also expressed architecturally and in other ways, the philosophy and the view of life, which characterized Tycho Brahe. A belief in research and the mapping of reality was to make us understand the cosmological connections.
A Renaissance Garden
The garden was, just like the castle, very symmetrical lay out. They also considered the practical use of a garden and planted fruit trees and sowed vegetables and herbs, which could be used in medical recipes.
We know that Tycho as well as his learned sister Sophie Brahe, who lived with him for long periods of time, devoted themselves to the manufacturing of medicinal preparations, in fact to such an extent, that the pharmacies in Copenhagen complained about the competition. It is very likely that Sophie Brahe participated in the lay out and the care taking of the garden, although there are no evidence of this.
The Garden | 
Ground plan |
Tycho Brahe leaves Ven
Tycho Brahe stayed in Ven for 21 years until 1597, when felt forced to leave Denmark. It is said that he had fallen out with the inhabitants in Ven, that he neglected his duties and that the new king Christian IV did not support him like Frederik II had done.
The circumstances surrounding Tycho Brahe´s fall are still unclear and much debated. Form Rostock Tycho Brhae wrote the kin in 1597 that he had not gone into exile and emphasized his loyalty. The king reproached him for having left without permission and pointed out several unsolved problems. He wrote of the peasants in Ven: ”There have been complaints about you from our poor subjects in Ven”. And of Tycho´s negligence of the church in Ven: ”...as the word of the baptism have been neglected with your knowledge for a long time against the use of the realm that is notorious for anybody”.
That Tycho Brahe did not take care of his estate obligations is probably correct, but one may wonder why the controversy with the peasants was brought up in a time, where it was the right of any lord of the manor to exploit his subjects and when the plight of the peasants was increased significantly.
Buxtehude – A Sound Citizen
It is difficult to say how the man in the street experienced Scania´s abrupt transition to Sweden at the peace treaties in 1658 and 1660. In paragraph 9 in the Roskilde peace treaty it was stated that all estates in Scania had the right to maintain their distinctive cultural characteristics and inherited rights, so nothing prevented them from living as they had done before. Furthermore it was difficult to say how much nationality meant for the individual. Sweden as well as Denmark was at this time complex – in reality multinational states, which to some extent demanded some loyalty from their citizens, but hardly a national disposition in the modern sense. That came with Romanticism’s worship of the nation and the people at the end of the 18th century.
The example of the composer Diderich Buxtehude may illuminate this connection. Posterity has not succeeded in establishing where he was born – in Holstein, Elsinore or Helsingborg – in any case he was born in an area, which belonged to the Danish state around 1637. His father, Johannes Buxtehude came from Oldesloe in Holstein – to where he probably had emigrated originally. In 1638 he became an organist at the Maria Church in Helsingborg. In the years 1638-41 the father worked in Helsingborg and here Diderich had some childhood years. In 1642 the father was the organist at the St. Olai Church in Elsinore, where he was active until around 1670. Diderich Buxtehude thus spent his childhood and youth in Helsingborg and Elsinore.
Music with Class
During the first half of the 17th century the musical scene at the Danish court and in the major churches was of a very high standard. (It is to be remembered that the court and the churches at that time were the most important customers, when it came to music and thus the music scene evolved around these institutions). Names like Heinrich Schütz and John Dowland are still remembered. Schütz was a church musician in Copenhagen and there he established the court orchestra. Dowland, a famous lutanist and composer, was a court musician. He lived in Elsinore. Johann Lorentz worked during the first half of the 17th century as a royal organ builder and he built or rebuilt all the important organs in the Sound region in a quite conservative renaissance style, a style, which then were represented by Schütz and Dowland. One of the most important remnants of Lorentz´s activity is in the organ facade in the Holy Trinity Church in Kristianstad.
New Organs
Diderich Buxtehude followed his father’s footsteps and became the organist in the Maria Church in Helsingborg. In 1660 he applied for and got the organist post in Elsinore´s Maria Church. Probably because this post was better paid and by taking it he came closer to the rest of his family. In the time up to 1668, where he went to Lübeck to apply for a post there, he lived in the same house as his mother and father. The house still stands.
Simultaneously the old Lorenz organs were modernized in a modern Baroque style, a style, which was represented musically by Diderich Buxtehude. The German organ builder did the modernization and he was the man behind the building and rebuilding of organs in Copenhagen, Elsinore, Halmstad, Helsingborg, Landskrona and Malmo.
Diderich Buxtehude experienced and participated in a very active renewal of the music scene through the new building, which was made. Two years after he had moved to Elsinore he came back to Helsingborg to supervise the rebuilding of the organ in the Maria Church. This indicates that the Swedish takeover in Scania in 1658 did not affect the music scene right away.
The Maria Church in Helsingborg | 
Saint Anne Street in Elsinore | 
The Old Organ | 
Buxtehude | 
Choir Organ in the Mariakyrkan (Church of St, Mary) |
Connections over the Sound
In his time in Elsinore Buxtehude kept in close touch with Swedish as well as Danish officials. The only piece of music we know of that Buxtehude wrote in his time in Elsinore, is from 1665 and dedicated to Christoffer Schneider, a Swedish postmaster and later consul resident in Elsinore. From his time in Elsinore Buxtehude also was friendly with the Swedish court conductor and organist Gustav Büben. Perhaps it was on his request that Buxtehude composed the wedding cantata to the wedding between Carl XI Gustav and his Danish queen Hedvig Eleonora in 1680.
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 | | Large | Aperte mihi portas iustitiae, Elsinore 1665. (Diderik Buxtehude) |
| | Large | Aria sopra le Nozze di Sua Maesta il Re de Svecia (1680). Diderik Buxtehude |
In Lübeck
In 1668 Buxtehude moved to Lübeck, probably for career reasons, but also to get away from the meagre financial circumstances in the devastated Sound region. The three Maria Churches in Helsingborg, Elsinore and Lübeck are the main threads in his life. Even though he spent most of his active life in Lübeck and even though he achieved fame and honour there, he never forgot his roots by the Sound. That was why the periodical “Nova litteraria Maris Balthici” could claim in 1707: “He considered Denmark his native country” (Patriam agnoscit Daniam).
Diderich Buxtehude´s career as a composer and an organist culminated in Lübeck and great composers like Händel and Bach came and listened to his music. He was especially renowned for his “Lübecker Abendmusiken”, which were concerts in connection with the evensong before Christmas. He wrote new organ works for this every year. |