Johann Nikolaus Forkel (22 February 1749 – 20 March 1818) was a German musicologist and music theorist, generally regarded as among the founders of modern musicology. His publications include the two-volume Allgemeine Geschichte der Musik (General History of Music), among the first attempts at a history of Western music and the "ground-breaking music bibliography" Allgemeine Litteratur der Musik. one which is of particular value today, as he was still able to correspond directly with Bach's sons Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, and thereby obtained much valuable information that would otherwise have been lost.
His library, which was accumulated with care and discrimination at a time when rare books were cheap, forms a valuable portion of the Berlin State Library and also of the library of the Königliche Institut für Kirchenmusik<!-- [where are those books now?] [mostly reprinted in the 1960s in German, not all trans into English]-->.
He died at Göttingen.
Selected works
Forkel's writings include:
- Über die Theorie der Musik (Göttingen, 1777)
- Musikalisch kritische Bibliothek (Gotha, 1778)
- Allgemeine Geschichte der Musik (Leipzig, 1788, 1801)
- Allgemeine Litteratur der Musik: oder, Anleitung zur Kenntniss musikalischer Bücher, welche von den ältesten bis auf die neusten Zeiten bey den Griechen, Römern und den meisten neuern europäischen Nationen sind geschrieben worden; systematisch geordnet, und nach Veranlassung mit Anmerkungen und Urtheilen begleitet (Leipzig 1792), known in English as Dictionary of Musical Literature
- Ueber Johann Sebastian Bachs Leben, Kunst und Kunstwerke. Für patriotische Verehrer echter musikalischer Kunst (Leipzig, 1802)