Walther, Johann Gottfried 09/18/1684 - 03/23/1748

Johann Gottfried Walther (1684-1748) was a German music theorist, organist, composer, and lexicographer of the Baroque era. Not only was his life almost exactly contemporaneous to that of J.S. Bach, he was the famous composer's cousin. He entered the lower school of Erfurt in 1691 and studied organ with Johann Bernhard Bach and Johann Andreas Kretschmar.



After studying at the Ratsgymnasium, Johann Gottfried Walther became organist at the Thomaskirche at Erfurt in 1702. He read the treatises of Werckmeister, Fludd, and Kircher and studied composition with Buttstett. In 1706 he studied with Wilhelm Hieronymus in Nuremberg, and was appointed organist at the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Weimar, in 1707. He remained there until his death. In Weimar he also taught music to Duke Wilhelm Ernst and Prince Johann Ernst and befriended J.S. Bach. In 1721 he joined the duke's court orchestra as Hof-musicus.



Johann Gottfried Walther wrote sacred vocal works and numerous organ pieces, consisting mostly of chorale preludes.



His theoretical works include the Musicalisches Lexicon oder Musicalische Bibliothec and the Praecepta der musicalischen Composition. The Musicalisches Lexicon (Leipzig, 1732), an enormous dictionary of music and musicians, was the first dictionary in the German language to contain both musical terms and biographical information about composers and performers up to the early 18th century. In all, the Musicalisches Lexicon defines more than 3,000 musical terms; Walther evidently drew on more than 250 separate sources in compiling it, including theoretical treatises of the early Baroque and Renaissance. The single most important source for the work was the writings of Johann Mattheson, who is referenced more than 200 times.