Johann Nikolaus Forkel

Johann Nikolaus Forkel (1749–1818) was a German musician and music historian, one of the founders of musicology as a scholarly discipline. Largely self-taught, he became organist and then director of music at the University of Göttingen, where he lectured on music theory and history. His General History of Music, left unfinished, and his bibliography of musical literature laid foundations for later scholars. In 1802 he published the first biography of Johann Sebastian Bach, based on information from Bach's sons Carl Philipp Emanuel and Wilhelm Friedemann, at a time when Bach's music was little known; the book helped prepare the Bach revival of the nineteenth century.