Hymns for Organ

From the Visby (Petri) Organ Tablature

First publication

Berendt Petri, the first owner of the tablature and colleague of Jacob Praetorius, completed the transcription in Freiburg an der Elbe in 1611. Sometime before 1630, the manuscript came into the possession of Johan(n) Bahr, who, after moving to Visby (Gotland, Sweden), wrote his own compositions on the pages left blank by Petri. The manuscript is now in the possession of the ‘Landesarchivet’ in Visby.
The significance of the tablature lies primarily in the fact that it is the only source of organ music composed in Hamburg at the beginning of the 17th century.
The compositions in this edition represent approximately one third of the content of the ‘Visby (Petri) Organ Tablature’.