(b c1605; d Stralsund, bur. 1 April 1646). German composer, organist and instrumentalist. He probably came of a musical family from Saxony or Thuringia. By 1616 he was a choirboy in the Dresden Hofkapelle, for in a letter of 23 September that year Heinrich Schütz, who was prominent there, described him as such and declared that he was ‘a fine, modest person and making a very good, solid beginning in composition’. He also studied the violin and cornett. In 1630–31 he was an instrumentalist in the Hofkapelle. He was a violinist at the Güstrow court from at least autumn 1631 to 24 June 1632, after which he travelled to Lübeck and Copenhagen. At this period he must have got to know Gabriel Voigtländer, whose song Als ich einmal Lust bekam he incorporated into no.31 of his Capricci (1641), and Johann Schop (i), Nicolaus Bleyer and Friedrich Hoyoul, to all three of whom he dedicated the same collection. From early in 1635 until his death he was organist of the Marienkirche, Stralsund. The pieces in Vierdanck’s first publication, Erster Theil newer Pavanen (1637), are in effect suites for two violins and continuo arranged systematically by key; they are significant in the early history of the suite, not least for their trio-sonata textures. There was a second edition in 1641, which was also when his Ander Theil … Capricci appeared. The first 14 pieces in this collection are early examples of duets without continuo; they were conceived for violins. The last piece in the volume – the one based on Voigtländer’s song – is scored for two cornetts and three trombones and is interesting for its tutti–solo contrasts. The concerto-like textures are paralleled in other pieces here: no.28, for example, for one cornett and three trombones, has been called the earliest German solo concerto. No.25, ‘auff quotlibethische Art’, is the most striking of the capriccios; with its double stopping and tremolos, it was probably one of the first pieces to be inspired by Farina’s famous Capriccio stravagante (1627). The book also contains variations, not mentioned on the title-page, including a set of nine on the passamezzo. Vierdanck’s two sets of Geistlicher Concerten (1641–3) contain 45 works for two to nine voices and continuo, many with two violins as well. He appears to have taken such pieces by his former teacher Schütz as his models, even to the extent in one piece of using material from Monteverdi’s duet Zefiro torna, as Schütz did in Es steh Gott auf (published in 1647 but no doubt written earlier). There are sinfonias to begin a work and sometimes in the course of one, and their motifs are often related to those in the following vocal section. There is a good deal of word-painting. Like Schütz, Vierdanck rarely used chorales. The first volume was popular enough to go into a second edition a year later and there was a third in 1656 when the second volume also reappeared. <a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Johann+Vierdanck">Read more on Last.fm</a>. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.