Zachariáš Zarewutius

Zachariáš Zarewutius, also known under the variants Zarevutius, Zerewucius or Zacharias, was a Slovak composer and organist born around 1605 in Brezovica nad Torysou, near Prešov, a place now called Berzevicze. His significance lies chiefly as a witness to the musical life of seventeenth-century Slovakia, in an environment of Lutheran churches and urban choirs.

He was educated at the Latin school of his native town. Between 1623 and 1624 he served as organist of the Lutheran church in Spišská Nová Ves and, from then until his death in 1667, held the same post at the Church of St Giles in Bardejov. He was married twice and had six children, two of whom pursued musical careers: Ján, organist in Bardejov between 1668 and 1673, and Zachariáš, who held the equivalent position in Levoča between 1682 and 1693.

Only eighteen of his works survive, nine of them incomplete, in manuscripts from the Bardejov collection. Zarewutius copied pieces by Handl, Hassler, Lassus, Hieronymus Praetorius and Scheidt, among others, into partbooks and tablature, some dated between 1650 and 1665. His own compositions include a mass, several Magnificats and motets for Christmas, New Year, Pentecost and Holy Trinity. They are notable for his command of the polychoral technique, with frequent antiphonal exchanges over largely homophonic textures and contrasts of rhythm, metre and timbre.

His output is modest in extent, but valuable for the light it sheds on Central European polyphonic practice and on the transmission of the organist's craft within families in the region.