For Super Sunday, Some Schmelzer

I've never heard -- or heard of -- Johann Heinrich Schmelzer before today.

If this is what he sounds like, I've got no explanation for that fact.

I'm letting myself slightly off the hook do to Wikipedia's account that "almost nothing is known about his early years." Please ignore the next line that claims he "enjoyed a close relationship with Emperor Leopold I, was ennobled by him, and rose to the rank of Kapellmeister in 1679." Or the subsequent claim that he "was one of the most important violinists of the period, and an important influence on later German and Austrian composers for violin." Or that he "was the foremost Austrian composer of instrumental music of his day."

You know what? Just listen to this, instead.

Attribution(s): "J.H. Schmelzer" (source) is licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.