Johann Gottfried Walther (18 September 1684 – 23 March 1748) was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
music theoristMusic theory is the field of study that deals with how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It identifies patterns that govern composers' techniques. In a grand sense, music theory distills and analyzes the parameters or elements of music – rhythm, harmony , melody,...
,
organistThe organ is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet...
, composer, and
lexicographerLexicography is divided into two related disciplines:*Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries....
of the
BaroqueBaroque music describes a style of European classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1750. This era is said to begin in music after the Renaissance and was followed by the Classical era...
era. Not only was his life almost exactly contemporaneous to that of
Johann Sebastian BachJohann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and organist whose ecclesiastical and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
, he was the famous composer's cousin.
Walther was most well-known as the compiler of the
Musicalisches Lexicon (
LeipzigLeipzig is, with a population of 515,459, the largest city in the federal state of Saxony, Germany.-Origins:Leipzig's name is derived from the Slavic word Lipsk, which means "settlement where the lime trees stand"....
, 1732), an enormous dictionary of music and musicians. Not only was it the first dictionary of musical terms written in the German language, it was the first to contain both terms and biographical information about composers and performers up to the early 18th century.
Johann Gottfried Walther (18 September 1684 – 23 March 1748) was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
music theoristMusic theory is the field of study that deals with how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It identifies patterns that govern composers' techniques. In a grand sense, music theory distills and analyzes the parameters or elements of music – rhythm, harmony , melody,...
,
organistThe organ is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet...
, composer, and
lexicographerLexicography is divided into two related disciplines:*Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries....
of the
BaroqueBaroque music describes a style of European classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1750. This era is said to begin in music after the Renaissance and was followed by the Classical era...
era. Not only was his life almost exactly contemporaneous to that of
Johann Sebastian BachJohann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and organist whose ecclesiastical and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
, he was the famous composer's cousin.
Walther was most well-known as the compiler of the
Musicalisches Lexicon (
LeipzigLeipzig is, with a population of 515,459, the largest city in the federal state of Saxony, Germany.-Origins:Leipzig's name is derived from the Slavic word Lipsk, which means "settlement where the lime trees stand"....
, 1732), an enormous dictionary of music and musicians. Not only was it the first dictionary of musical terms written in the German language, it was the first to contain both 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 Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance. Defining the beginning of the musical era is difficult, given the gradually adopted "Renaissance" characteristics: musicologists have placed its beginnings from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s.- Style and trends :The...
. The single most important source for the work was the writings of
Johann MatthesonJohann Mattheson was a German composer, writer, lexicographer, diplomat and music theorist.Mattheson was born and died in Hamburg. He was a close friend of George Frideric Handel, although he nearly killed him in a sudden quarrel, during a performance of Mattheson's opera Cleopatra in 1704...
, who is referenced more than 200 times.
Some further information on Walther can be found in the book
Musica Poetica by Dietrich Bartel. On page 22, Bartel quotes Walther's definition of musica poetica, or musical rhetoric, as:
- "Musica Poetica or musical composition is a mathematical science through which an agreeable and correct harmony of the notes is brought to paper in order that it might later be sung or played, thereby appropriately moving the listeners to Godly devotion as well as to please and delight both mind and soul…. It is so called because the composer must not only understand language as does the poet in order not to violate the meter of the text but because he also writes poetry, namely a melody, thus deserving the title Melopoeta or Melopoeus." (22)
Walther was the music teacher of
Duke Johann Ernst von Sachsen-WeimarJohann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar was a German prince, son by his second marriage of Johann Ernst III, Duke of Saxe-Weimar...
. He wrote a handbook for the young Duke with the title
Praecepta der musicalischen Composition, 1708. It remained handwritten until Peter Benary's edition (Leipzig, 1955). As an organ composer, Walther became famous for his organ transcriptions of orchestral concertos by contemporary Italian and German masters. He made 14 transcriptions of concertos by Albinoni, Gentili, Taglietti,
Giuseppe TorelliGiuseppe Torelli was an Italian violist, violinist, teacher, and composer.Torelli is most remembered for his contributions to the development of the instrumental concerto Giuseppe Torelli (April 22, 1658 – February 8, 1709) was an Italian violist, violinist, teacher, and composer.Torelli is most...
, Vivaldi and Telemann. These works were the models for Bach to write his famous transcriptions of concertos by Vivaldi and others. On the other hand, Walther as a city organist of Weimar wrote exactly 132 organ preludes based on Lutheran chorale melodies. Some free keyboard music also belongs to his legacy.
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