Dieterich Buxtehude

German-Danish organist and composer of the Baroque period, born c. 1637-1639, Helsingborg, Skåne, Denmark - died May 9, 1707, Lübeck, Germany. Buxtehude, along with Heinrich Schütz, is considered today to be one of the most important German composers of the mid-Baroque. His style strongly influenced many composers, including Johann Sebastian Bach, who walked in 1705 from Arnstadt to Lübeck, a distance of more than 400 kilometres, and stayed nearly three months to hear Buxtehude's musical evenings and, as Bach explained, "to comprehend one thing and another about his art.".