(b Geising, 6 April 1660; d Leipzig, 5 June 1722). German composer and theorist. He studied in Dresden and Zittau, where he briefly served as Kantor and organist, and then at Leipzig, where in 1684 he became organist at the Thomaskirche and, in 1701, Kantor. His secular vocal music is all lost, but many sacred works survive, mostly cantatas, anticipating the style of Bach, his successor: they show lyrical vocal writing, powerful fugues and dramatic contrasts of texure which stress the rhetorical sense. He published four sets of keyboard pieces, including two sets called Clavier-Übung (each with seven suites, one set in the major keys and one in the minor) and, his best-known work, the Biblical Sonatas, which describe in music, sometimes naively but with enterprising use of the harpsichord's resources, the emotional states aroused by particular stories from the Bible.

The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.