Samuel Besler

{{short description|German-Polish composer}}

File:Tablica upamiętniająca Samuela Beslera. Kościół św. Bernardyna, Wrocław.jpg

Samuel Besler (15 December 1574, in Brieg – 19 July 1625) was a German composer. He was cantor at St. Bernhardinus, Breslau, in 1602, then rector of the Gymnasium from 1605. As with Jakob Meiland in the generation before him, and Melchior Vulpius in his own generation, his St. Matthew Passion follows the model of Johann Walter's Lutheran historia, but with more elaborate choral numbers.Howard E. Smither History of the Oratorio: Vol. 2: the Oratorio in the Baroque ... 2012 p.5 "This Passion by Walter was a model for numerous other sixteenth- and seventeenth-century works, including an anonymous St. Matthew Passion (attributed to Walter) in a manuscript of 1573 and the St. Matthew Passions by Jakob Meiland (1570), Samuel Besler (1611), and Melchior Vulpius (1613)"