Joseph Kelemen - Matthias Weckmann: Norddeutsche Orgelmeister, Vol. 2 (2005) [SACD]

Matthias Weckmann was probably born in 1616 in Niederdorla, near Mühlhausen, Thuringia. He moved to Dresden around 1628 and was a choirboy in the court chapel led by Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672). Schütz sent him to Hamburg in 1633 – complete with a scholarship sponsored by Saxon’s prince elector Johann Georg I – to study organ with Jacob Praetorius (1586–1651), the organist at St. Peter’s. Praetorius had studied with the famous teacher Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562–1621) in Amsterdam, just as had Heinrich Scheidemann (ca. 1596–1663), who was in Hamburg at the same time as Praetorius and the organist at St. Katharina’s. During his studies with Praetorius, Weckmann would certainly have heard Scheidemann on occasion. Weckmann’s acquaintanceship with both of these important masters during his Hamburg years gave him many insights into the Northern German manner of organbuilding and performance.