Michael Praetorius

Michael Praetorius served for most of his career as court music director at Wolfenbüttel in northern Germany, writing and organizing music for a duke's chapel. Born in 1571, the son of a Lutheran pastor, he became one of the most prolific church composers of his era, publishing volume after volume of hymn settings for Protestant worship.

He mattered as a writer about music too. His Syntagma musicum, a three-part treatise, catalogs and illustrates the instruments of his day so thoroughly that modern performers of early music still rely on it. His harmonization of the Christmas carol "Es ist ein Ros entsprungen," known in English as "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming," is sung every December.

Start with the Terpsichore dances, his collection of over three hundred French courtly dance tunes, bright and rhythmic and endlessly arrangeable. Most recordings pick a colorful sampler from the set.