Valentin Rathgeber

Johann Valentin Rathgeber (3 April 1682 – 2 June 1750) was a German composer, organist and choirmaster of the Baroque Era.

In 1707 he took up the post of chamber musician and servant of the abbot of the Banz Abbey, Kilian Düring.

[2] Documented stops on this trip were Mainz, Bonn, Cologne, Trier, Stuttgart, Regensburg, Germany, Switzerland, Vienna and Styria.

He wrote several hundred works, mainly masses (43), hymns, arias, litanies, requiems, magnificats, offertories (164), Marian antiphons (44) and also instrumental concertos (24) and songs.

His Augsburger Tafel-Confect, short for Ohren-vergnügendes und Gemüth-ergötzendes Tafel-Confect (Augsburg Table Confectionery, short for Table Confectionery, Pleasuring the Ears and Delightful to the Soul) is a collection of songs meant to be performed for dessert, whereas a Tafelmusik was performed during a main course.