The new change in German organ art is strikingly indicated by the _Tabulatura Nova_, published at Hamburg in 1624 by Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654) of Halle. The music in this important work is entirely free from the pernicious influence of _coloratura_ and for the first time chorales are treated as pure organ music. Scheidt, who was a pupil of the great Dutch organist and teacher Sweelinck and a contemporary of Frescobaldi, was one of the three great S’s of the seventeenth century (the other two being Schütz of Dresden and Schein of Leipzig, all three being born about the same time). He was one of the most famous organists of the century and did much to set the seal of permanence on the forms of organ music that henceforth were chiefly cultivated by German organ composers. These forms were the figured chorale, the prelude and fugue, the canzona, the toccata, and the fantasia. Scheidt’s importance lies in his artistic treatment of the chorale, an idea that was taken up with such success a hundred years later by the great Bach. By the middle of the seventeenth century German organ music had attached itself firmly to the solid ideals it has ever since maintained. Nuremberg, the old home of German art in South Germany, was also one of the principal nurseries of early German organ art and held its leading position until the beginning of the eighteenth century. The first of the celebrated Nuremberg organists was Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612), one of the real founders of German music. He was organist to the fabulously wealthy Fuggers in Augsburg in 1585 and after passing several years in Venice as court-musician to Emperor Rudolph, he accepted a position as court-organist at Dresden in 1608, where he died. He was the composer of the melody to the chorale _Herzlich tut mich verlangen_, which was such a favorite with Bach that he used it in many of his chorale-preludes and also in the ‘St. Matthew Passion.’ His organ works were only three in number, but Ritter maintains that he bore the same important relation to German music that the Gabrielis bore to Italian. Erasmus Kindermann (1610-1655) spent most of his life in Nuremberg. In his _Harmonia Organica_ (published in 1645), consisting of preludes in the twelve tones, he composed several strictly in the modern keys (C major, D major, F major) and treated the pedal with great freedom.