Johann Gottfried Walther was a year older than his distant relative Johann Sebastian Bach. The two became friends when Bach spent some time in Weimar, the town that was Walther’s home from 1707 until his death. Walther was acknowledged as one of the greatest organists of his day, not only playing his own compositions, but also collecting the manuscripts of works by other composers. Some of the works of J. S. Bach and Buxtehude have come down to us in manuscripts copied by Walther. Perhaps Walther’s most important legacy is his Musikalisches Lexikon (Leipzig, 1732), the first comprehensive dictionary of music in the German language.