Valentin Neander

Valentin Neander (II) was a German composer of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the son of the composer Valentin Neander (I). His date of birth is uncertain: it is placed around 1575-1580 in Treuenbrietzen, near Berlin, and the date of his death, which occurred after 1619, is unknown.

In 1597 he matriculated at the University of Frankfurt an der Oder, where he was a pupil of Bartholomäus Gesius. Much of his output has been lost, but several publications are known: Neue geistliche Lieder for four or eight voices (Frankfurt an der Oder, 1601) and the Cantio nuptialis on Psalm CXII for eight voices (Wittenberg, 1607), composed for the wedding of the Duke of Saxony. Both works are lost.

His best-known work is Newe christliche Kirchen Gesänge, published in Frankfurt an der Oder in 1619, a collection of 89 pieces for four voices that may also be lost. This collection shows the arrival of the Huguenot psalm-singing style in north Lutheran Germany, a process that may have been encouraged by the conversion of Elector John Sigismund of Brandenburg to Calvinism in 1613.

His legacy is modest but useful for understanding the circulation of musical models between religious confessions in the Germanic world of the period.