Johann Valentin Meder - Chaconne in C for Violin, Bassoon & Continuo (c. 1680)

Johann Valentin Meder (baptised May 3, 1649 – July 1719) was a German composer, organist, and singer. (He is not to be confused with the German composer Johann Gabriel Meder, born in 1729 near Erfurt, and active in Amsterdam until 1800; nor is there evidence that the two men were related.) Chaconne in C Major (c. 1680) Pages from the Düben Collection Drottningholm Baroque Orchestra Meder was born in Wasungen, Thuringia to a musical family with his father and four brothers all being organists or Kantors. It is rumored that he moved to Leipzig in 1666, began his University studies in theology at Leipzig in 1669. In 1670, Meder left Leipzig to pursue continued studies at the University of Jena. Unable to secure a position there at the University, he resorted to taking a post as a professional singer in the Hofkappele of Duke Ernst der Fromme (d. 1675). He was employed as court singer at Gotha in 1671, Bremen in 1672–1673, Hamburg in 1673 and Copenhagen and Lübeck where in 1674 he met Buxtehude), whose work influenced Meder's own sacred compositions. From 1674 to 1680 he was Kantor at the Gymnasium at Reval (now Tallinn, Estonia). After a sojourn in Riga (now in Latvia), in 1685-1686 he succeeded Balthasar Erben as Kapellmeister at the Marienkirche in Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) in 1687. In 1698 the Danzig city council refused to allow a performance of his opera Die wiederverehligte Coelia. He had it performed instead in the nearby town of Schottland (now in Poland)...