At the age of twenty eight Krieger accepted a position with the court at Halle with Duke August. In 1680, Johann Adolph I moved the court to Weissenfels with Krieger as the Kapellmeister. He maintained this position until his death. At the age of eight Krieger was astounding teachers and audiences alike with his performance upon the harpischord. He recieved instruction on many instruments from Gabriel Schutz and by the age of nine was able to play any melody that was sung. He studied the organ with Johannes Schroder in Stockholm and composition with Kaspar Forster. As a court and church composer he had written over 2000 cantatas most of which are now lost. Krieger composed both sacred and secular music including sets of trio sonatas, eighteen operas to German texts, and cantatas. Undoubtedly he also composed a large body of keyboard works but only a few are extant. The trio sonatas were similar to the compositions of Corelli. Krieger's sonatas for a large number of instruments and three choirs were part of the early development of the German concerto grosso. His operas were often strophic and set through syllabic stylings and simple harmonies particularly the arias. On one occasion Krieger even composed an aria (this time for a cantata) in the Italian de capo manner. This was not part of the conventional wisdom in Weissenfels and was not among the normative practices of Krieger. The cantatas which he composed, outnumbering the stock of Bach's output by nearly six to one, were adoptions of madrigal texts and secular in character. This is not an accurate description for all of his cantatas but Kreiger's prevailing devices included secular texts, arias, recitatives, early forms likened to solo and choral concertos, simple melodies, and straightforward rhythms and harmonies. Measurements for the quality of a cantata have their source in the works of Bach and Krieger's did not acceed to those heights; however, his work did compare favorably with the compositions of Buxtehude and Pachelbel. ~ Keith Johnson, Rovi