Johann Jakob Walther (1650 – 2 November 1717) was a German

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

ist and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

Life

All the known facts of his life and activity are from the ''Musikalischen Lexikon'' by

Johann Gottfried Walther Johann Gottfried Walther (18 September 1684 – 23 March 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 ...

(

Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard w ...

's cousin), a dictionary which first appeared in 1732. J.J. Walther was born in Witterda bei

Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits i ...

. Between 1670 and 1674 he is said to have remained a violinist in the orchestra of

Cosimo III Cosimo III de' Medici (14 August 1642 – 31 October 1723) was Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1670 until his death in 1723, the sixth and penultimate from the House of Medici. He reigned from 1670 to 1723, and was the elder son of Grand Duke Ferdinan ...

of the

Medici The House of Medici ( , ) was an Italian banking family and political dynasty that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici, in the Republic of Florence during the first half of the 15th century. The family originated in the Muge ...

s in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

. From 1674 he was concertmaster at the court of

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

. After the death of his patron in 1680 he became the Italian secretary at the elector's court in Mainz and was ordained a

canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western can ...

. He died in

Mainz Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main (river), Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-we ...

. Alongside Biber and Westhoff, J.J. Walther is one of the most significant German violinists of the 17th century. Besides a virtuoso technique including

doublestop In music, a double stop is the technique of playing two notes simultaneously on a stringed instrument such as a violin, a viola, a cello, or a double bass. On instruments such as the Hardanger fiddle it is common and often employed. In performin ...

s and

arpeggio A broken chord is a chord broken into a sequence of notes. A broken chord may repeat some of the notes from the chord and span one or more octaves. An arpeggio () is a type of broken chord, in which the notes that compose a chord are played ...

s, his works display a wealth of formal devices, especially in the treatment of

ostinato In music, an ostinato (; derived from Italian word for ''stubborn'', compare English ''obstinate'') is a motif or phrase that persistently repeats in the same musical voice, frequently in the same pitch. Well-known ostinato-based pieces include ...

variations.

Works

40 compositions are known, contained in two volumes: #''Scherzi da Violino solo con il basso continuo'', published in 1676. This cycle anticipates Paganini's technique in that it contains pizzicato harp imitations while the bow imitates

nightingale The common nightingale, rufous nightingale or simply nightingale (''Luscinia megarhynchos''), is a small passerine bird best known for its powerful and beautiful song. It was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family Turdidae, but is no ...

song. #''Hortulus chelicus'' published in 1688 (in the second printing of 1694 with the new title ''Wohlgepflanzter Violinischer Lustgarten''). In the foreword, Walther expresses his confidence that this self-published volume will enjoy the same success as its predecessor. It contains 28 pieces and is more varied than the other collection.

External links

References

* Walther, Johann Gottfried: ''Musicalisches Lexicon oder Musicalische Bibliothec'' (1732). 1650 births 1717 deaths German Baroque composers German male classical composers German violinists German classical violinists German male violinists Male classical violinists {{Germany-composer-stub