Daniel Erich (19 February 1649 in

Lübeck Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the stat ...

- 30 October 1712 in

Güstrow Güstrow (; la, Gustrovium) is a town in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is capital of the Rostock district; Rostock itself is a district-free city and regiopolis. It has a population of 28,999 (2020) and is the seventh largest town in Me ...

) was a German

organist An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ (music), organ. An organist may play organ repertoire, solo organ works, play with an musical ensemble, ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumentalist, instrumental ...

and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

. Born into a musical family—his father was a

lute A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lute" can ref ...

nist and maker of stringed instruments in Lübeck—Erich studied for many years with

Dietrich Buxtehude Dieterich Buxtehude (; ; born Diderik Hansen Buxtehude; c. 1637 – 9 May 1707) was a Danish organist and composer of the Baroque period, whose works are typical of the North German organ school. As a composer who worked in various vocal a ...

, who bought a tenor

viol The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitc ...

from his father in 1677. From 1675 until 1679, Erich played the

positive organ A positive organ (also positiv organ, positif organ, portable organ, chair organ, or simply positive, positiv, positif, or chair) (from the Latin verb ''ponere'', "to place") is a small, usually one-manual, pipe organ that is built to be more o ...

in the choir loft at the Marienkirche in Lübeck. In 1679, he was appointed organist at the parish church in Güstrow (also the Marienkirche), a position he held until his death. Erich also enjoyed a high reputation as an organ teacher and authority on the instrument, and in the latter capacity worked closely with the organ builder

Arp Schnitger Arp Schnitger (2 July 164828 July 1719 (buried)) was an influential Northern German organ builder. Considered the most paramount manufacturer of his time, Schnitger built or rebuilt over 150 organs. He was primarily active in Northern Europe, es ...

. In 1700, he played at the dedication of a new organ by Schnitger in the

Dargun Dargun is a town in the Mecklenburgische Seenplatte district, in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. It is situated km west of Demmin. It is famous for Dargun Palace, a former Cistercian abbey. History From 1815 to 1918 Dargun was part of ...

castle church. Only four of his compositions survive. All are

chorale prelude In music, a chorale prelude or chorale setting is a short liturgical composition for organ using a chorale tune as its basis. It was a predominant style of the German Baroque era and reached its culmination in the works of J.S. Bach, who wrote 46 ...

s, none of them dated: * ''Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ'', which has been described as "not very expressive"; * ''Christum wir sollen loben schon'', described as "fantasy-like" and "virtuosic"; * ''

Es ist das Heil uns kommen her "Es ist das Heil uns kommen her" (originally: "Es ist das heyl vns kommen her", English: "Salvation now has come for all" or more literally: It is our salvation come here to us) is a Lutheran hymn in 14 stanzas by Paul Speratus. It was first pub ...

'', which "shows considerable originality"; and * ''Von Gott will ich nicht lassen'', a set of six "fluent"

variations Variation or Variations may refer to: Science and mathematics * Variation (astronomy), any perturbation of the mean motion or orbit of a planet or satellite, particularly of the moon * Genetic variation, the difference in DNA among individuals ...

. ''Christum wir sollen loben schon'' came to light when the

Neumeister Collection The Neumeister Collection is a compilation of 82 chorale preludes found in a manuscript copy produced by Johann Gottfried Neumeister (1757–1840). When the manuscript was rediscovered at Yale University in the 1980s it appeared to contain 31 previ ...

was rediscovered in 1984, inspiring hope that other works may yet be found.Sara Ann Jones
''The Neumeister Collection of Chorale Preludes of the Bach Circle: An Examination of the Chorale Preludes of J.S. Bach and Their Usage as Service Music and Pedagogical Works''
, Doctor of Musical Arts Dissertation, Louisiana State University, 2002, pp. 3 and 77.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Erich, Daniel German Baroque composers Composers for pipe organ German classical composers German classical organists Organ improvisers Organists and composers in the North German tradition German male organists 18th-century keyboardists German male classical composers 1649 births 1712 deaths Male classical organists