Johann Erasmus Kindermann

Kindermann was born in Nuremberg and studied music from an early age; at 15 he already had a job performing at Sunday afternoon concerts at the Frauenkirche (he sang bass and played violin).

Nothing is known about his stay in Italy; he may have visited Venice like several other Nuremberg composers (Hans Leo Hassler, Johann Philipp Krieger).

Most of Kindermann's surviving works are vocal pieces that reflect the transition from older forms to the more modern use of concertato techniques and basso continuo and explore a variety of techniques from motets for choir without instruments to concertos for solo voices after Schütz's sectional concertos, recitative and dialogue experiments (some of which look up to late Baroque works - for example, by using unprepared dissonance in the recitative Dum tot carminibus for tenor and continuo).

Several manuscript pieces are important precursors to later church cantatas and belong to the earliest large-scale Nuremberg vocal music to have contrasting solo and choral movements.

The final piece of Harmonia Organica is a Magnificat setting, which begins and ends with a full-fledged improvisatory, free section.