North German organ school

Germany can take credit for a very significant share of the organ repertoire; notably, Northern Germany, a successor to the Dutch master Sweelinck. From the second half of the 16th century, these Protestant lands will see the flourishing talent of such masters as Praetorius, Scheidemann, Reinken, and Mattheson... . The trend had its culmination in Lübeck in the extraordinarily varied output of the great Buxtehude, whose instruction the young Johann Sebastian Bach came to seek (and the hand of whose daughter he declined).