Johann Gottfried Walther (1684 – 1748) was a German
music theorist, organist, composer, and lexicographer
of the Baroque era. Walther was born at Erfurt. Not
only was his life almost exactly contemporaneous to
that of Johann Sebastian Bach, he was the famous
composer's cousin.
Walther was most well known as the compiler of the
Musicalisches Lexicon (Leipzig, 1732), an enormous
dictionary of music and musicians. Not only was it the
first dictionary of musical terms written in the Germ...(+)
Johann Gottfried Walther (1684 – 1748) was a German
music theorist, organist, composer, and lexicographer
of the Baroque era. Walther was born at Erfurt. Not
only was his life almost exactly contemporaneous to
that of Johann Sebastian Bach, he was the famous
composer's cousin.
Walther was most well known as the compiler of the
Musicalisches Lexicon (Leipzig, 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. The single most
important source for the work was the writings of
Johann Mattheson, who is referenced more than 200
times.
Johann Gottfried Walther wrote sacred vocal works and
numerous organ pieces, consisting mostly of chorale
preludes including this "Christus der ist mein Leben"
(Christ is my life).
Although originally written for Organ, I created this
abbreviated arrangement for Bassoon & Contrabassoon.
