Nicolaus Vetter

Andreas Nicolaus Vetter, known as Nicolaus Vetter, was a German organist and composer, born probably around October 1666, most likely in Herschdorf, near Königsee, in Thuringia, and died in Rudolstadt on 13 June 1734. His date and place of birth are given with a question mark, so they should be treated with caution. His career belongs to the organ tradition of central Germany at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries.

His training began in Nuremberg with G. K. Wecker and continued at the Gymnasium in Rudolstadt between 1683 and 1688. However, the decisive influence was that of Johann Pachelbel, with whom he studied in Erfurt between 1688 and 1690. When Pachelbel left for Stuttgart in 1690, Vetter succeeded him at the Predigerkirche. The following year he moved to Rudolstadt as court organist, and in Erfurt he was succeeded by J. H. Buttstedt. Over the years the authorities granted him the posts of government advocate, ecclesiastical procurator and supervisor of the pages, which suggests, according to some researchers, that he may have attended the university of Erfurt, although this is not documented.

His contemporaries particularly admired his chorale settings, regarded as good examples of the central German style that Pachelbel had established. His work was sometimes confused with that of Bach: a manuscript in the Berlin State Library, now lost, attributed to Vetter a pair of variations on Allein Gott, BWV 771. Much of his output has been lost, including his free organ works and a piece for choir and orchestra composed for a celebration in Rudolstadt. Today his importance rests chiefly on his role as a direct pupil of Pachelbel and as a testament to the choral repertoire of his time.