Johann Hermann Schein

Schein was a German composer of sacred and secular music, one of the earliest (with Michael Praetorius and Heinrich Schütz) to introduce the Italian Baroque style into German music. Unlike Schütz, however, he seems to have never travelled to Italy, making his grasp of the style all the more remarkable. He was Kantor at the Thomasschule in Leipzig (a post that JS Bach was to hold 100 years later), and his life was plagued with tragedy and poor health.