The most complete information about Georg Dietrich Leyding is to be found in Johann Gottfried Walther's "Musikalisches Lexikon" from 1723:
"Leyding (Georg Dietrich) was
born on February 23, 1664 in Buecken, in the region of Hoya.....Since he
demonstrated an exceptional
natural gift of music already at an early age he received instruction in
the practice of
music in 1679 while still
very young, at the age of 15, from Jacob Boelsche, the organist
in Brunswick. He studied
intensely with him for
five years and therefore travelled to Hamburg and Lübeck in 1684 to
benefit from the
extremely famous organists
Reincken and Buxtehude. While Leiding was still in Lübeck Boelsche
informed him
of his illness and asked
him to take his place during the time of that illness. Leiding accepted
his offer and that
proved to be a wise decision
because Boelsche died that summer, 1684, and the leadership of church
music in St.
Uldaric and St. Blaise
fell to Leiding. Thereafter he studied composition under Theile,
a director of music, and
several years later was
offered the post of organist even in St. Magnus Church. He accepted
this post and
enjoyed great fame and
popularity until the year 1710 when he died on the 10th of May. Most
of his
compositions are for
the organ (which can be seen from the many compositions he has written
for
keyboard instruments)
and he is especially remembered for being a humble and peaceful man who
never
spoke ill of others and
who admired decency in his fellow man." This article is obviously
based on the
material Walther received
from his friend who was the church musician in Wolfenbümel,
Bokenmeyer. In a letter
dated August 6, 1729
Walther inquires about the spelling of his last name (Leyding or Leiding),
as well as the
possibility of collecting
Leyding's compositions. Walther chose to use �Leiding' in his lexicon
but continued
to write �Leyding' in
letters and manuscripts. A letter from 1731 shows that Walther had
received copies of
Leyding's works but doesn't
reveal how many works it was a question of.