Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (b. Deventer, 1562; d. Amsterdam,1621). 

During his lifetime, Dutch composer, organist, and teacher Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck .  was unrivaled as the top composer in the Netherlands. For the last forty years of his life, he was organist at the Oude Kerk (Old Church). Through his German pupils, the most notable of whom was Samuel Scheidt, he created a Baroque school of organ music.

In some of his works Sweelinck appears to be a composer of the Baroque period. His chansons, however, are mostly in the French Renaissance tradition.

His vocal works, in addition to the chansons and madrigals, include four books of psalms, the Cantiones sacrae (Sacred Songs). Sweelinck’s organ and harpsichord works can be divided into three categories: sacred and secular variations, toccatas, and fantasias. His variations of psalm tunes and chorales opened the long and brilliant history of the organ chorale. His toccatas carried the stamp of the Venetian school. Of key musical importance are his fantasias, which laid the foundation for the evolution of the fugue.