Lübeck in 200 miles – the distance many writers have ascribed to JS Bach’s epic trek in the winter of 1705. Depending on the route taken, the 20 year-old organist of the Neuekirche would have needed shoe leather for nearer 300, but the prize was evidently worth the investment.

Dieterich Buxtehude

Handel must have thought so too. He popped over from nearby Hamburg in 1703 in the company of Johann Mattheson. The draw? A great Dane (or so he saw himself according to the obituary notice in the Baltic ‘Nova Literaria’) of German stock, and in possession of a reputation as composer and performer which spread far beyond the confines of the Marienkirche whose organ lofts he graced for nigh on 40 years.

Dieterich Buxtehude was...