Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621) was a Dutch composer, organist and teacher, one of the most important keyboard musicians around 1600. He spent most of his career as organist of the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam.

His works include keyboard fantasias, toccatas, variations, psalm settings, chansons and madrigals. His keyboard music influenced the north German organ school that eventually led toward Buxtehude and Bach.

Sweelinck’s style combines Renaissance counterpoint with a growing idiomatic sense of the keyboard. His music is learned, supple and often brilliantly inventive.

He is sometimes called the “maker of German organists,” and with reason. Sweelinck’s music stands at a crucial junction where vocal polyphony begins to find its hands on the keyboard.