Meder, Johann Valentin

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Meder, Johann Valentin

Meder, Johann Valentin, German singer, organist, and composer; b. Wasungen, near Meiningen (baptized), May 3, 1649; d. Riga, July 1719. He studied theology in Leipzig and Jena. After serving as a court singer in Gotha (1671), Bremen (1672–73), Hamburg (1673), Copenhagen (1674), and Lübeck (1674), he was Kantor at the Reval Gymnasium (1674–80). From 1687 to 1698 he was Kapellmeister at St. Marien in Danzig. He then was Kantor at Königsberg Cathedral, and subsequently in Riga (from 1700). He composed the opera Die beständige Ar genia (Reval, 1680), an oratorio Passion (1700), and many masses, cantatas, and motets.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire

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