Andreas Nicolaus Vetter was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 organist

Pipe organ

The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...

 and composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

.

He was born in Herschdorf

Herschdorf

Herschdorf is a municipality in the district Ilm-Kreis, in Thuringia, Germany....

, Thuringia

Thuringia

The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....

. He first studied music

Baroque music

Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...

 with G.K. Wecker in Nuremberg

Nuremberg

Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...

 and was a student at the Rudolstadt

Rudolstadt

Rudolstadt is a town in the German Bundesland of Thuringia, close to the Thuringian Forest to the southwest, and to Jena and Weimar to the north....

 Gymnasium from 1683 to 1688. He then moved to Erfurt

Erfurt

Erfurt is the capital city of Thuringia and the main city nearest to the geographical centre of Germany, located 100 km SW of Leipzig, 150 km N of Nuremberg and 180 km SE of Hannover. Erfurt Airport can be reached by plane via Munich. It lies in the southern part of the Thuringian...

 to study with Johann Pachelbel

Johann Pachelbel

Johann Pachelbel was a German Baroque composer, organist and teacher, who brought the south German organ tradition to its peak. He composed a large body of sacred and secular music, and his contributions to the development of the chorale prelude and fugue have earned him a place among the most...

, succeeding him as organist of the Predigerkirche

Predigerkirche (Erfurt)

Predigerkirche is a Protestant church in Erfurt, Germany. It is a monastic church to the Dominican friary, Predigerkloster, adjacent to the church. Predigerkirche was originally built by the Dominican Order in the 13th century, when the mystic Meister Eckhart was prior here. The church only became...

 when he left for Stuttgart

Stuttgart

Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....

 in 1690; during this time, he may have attended the University of Erfurt

University of Erfurt

The University of Erfurt is a public university located in Erfurt, Germany. Originally founded in 1379, the university was closed in 1816 for the next 177 years...

. He was succeeded by J.H. Buttstedt in July 1691, when he went to Rudolstadt

Rudolstadt

Rudolstadt is a town in the German Bundesland of Thuringia, close to the Thuringian Forest to the southwest, and to Jena and Weimar to the north....

 to take up a position as castle

Castle

A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...

 organist; he was later honoured with the appointments of Government Advocate, Church Procurator and Master Over The Page Boy

Page (servant)

A page or page boy is a traditionally young male servant, a messenger at the service of a nobleman or royal.-The medieval page:In medieval times, a page was an attendant to a knight; an apprentice squire...

s.

His surviving compositions are now few, since World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 led to the destruction of all his free organ compositions and a work for chorus

Choir

A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...

 and orchestra

Orchestra

An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...

 entitled Zum frohen Empfang Grossherzogs Carl Fürsten Primas. The manuscript Mus.40035 of the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, gave his name as the composer of variations eight and three of the organ partita on Allein Gott in der Höh' sei Ehr, BWV 771, once attributed to J. S. Bach; he may have been the composer of all seventeen verses. His surviving organ works, which are chorale

Chorale

A chorale was originally a hymn sung by a Christian congregation. In certain modern usage, this term may also include classical settings of such hymns and works of a similar character....

 settings in the tradition of the South German school, appear in the modern editions Orgelchoräle um Joh. Seb. Bach, ed. G. Frotscher (Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

, 1937), and Andreas Nicolaus Vetter (1666–1734): Koraalbewerkingen, ed. E. Kooiman (Hilversum

Hilversum

is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Located in the region called "'t Gooi", it is the largest town in that area. It is surrounded by heathland, woods, meadows, lakes, and smaller villages...

, 1989). The manuscript

Manuscript

A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

s of many of these works were also lost in World War II.

Sources

• Hugh J. McLean, 'Vetter, (Andreas) Nicolaus', Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 2007-06-08), http://www.grovemusic.com/

External links