Karl Ferdinand Becker was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 writer on music, and an organist

Organist

An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists...

.

Biography

He was the son of physician and writer Gottfried Wilhelm Becker

Gottfried Wilhelm Becker

Gottfried Wilhelm Becker was a German physician and writer.-Biography:He translated some of Cooper's novels, and Le mie prigioni of Silvio Pellico. By his literary labors he accumulated $40,000...

. He attended the Thomasschule in Leipzig in his early years, where his teachers Johann Gottfried Schicht

Johann Gottfried Schicht

Johann Gottfried Schicht was a German composer and conductor.He was the conductor of the Gewandhausorchester from 1785 to 1810, and then the cantor of the Thomanerchor until 1823....

 and Friedrich Schneider

Friedrich Schneider

Johann Christian Friedrich Schneider was a German composer and conductor.Schneider studied piano first with his father Johann Gottlob Schneider, and then at the Zittau Gymnasium with Schönfelder and Unger. His first published works were a set of three piano sonatas in 1804...

 trained him in music. He made his debut as a pianist at 14. From 1820 to 1833, he was a violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

ist in the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra

Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra

The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra is one of the the oldest symphony orchestras in the world...

. In 1825, he became an organist in the Peterskirche and then in 1837 at the St. Nicholas Church. In 1848, he became an instructor of organ and music history at the University of Music and Theatre at Leipzig. He was one of the founders of the Leipzig Bach Gesellschaft

Bach Gesellschaft

The Bach-Gesellschaft was a society formed in 1850 for the express purpose of publishing the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach without editorial additions. Their collected works are known as the Bach-Gesellschaft-Ausgabe....

 in 1850.

Works

His works on the history of music place him in the same rank with Kiesewetter and Winterfeld. Among his works are:

• Rathgeber für Organisten (Advisor for organists; Leipzig, 1828)
• Systematisch-chrologische Darstellung der musikalischen Litteratur (Systematic chronological representation of musical literature; Leipzig, 1836)
• Die Hausmusik in Deutschland im 16. 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (Household music in Germany in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries; Leipzig, 1840)
• Die Tonkünstler des 19. Jahrhunderts (Composers of the 19th century; 1847)
• Die Tonwerke des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts (1847), an index of musical works published in the 16th and 17th centuries
• Lieder und Weisen vergangener Jahrhunderte (Songs and melodies of past centuries; 2d ed., Leipzig, 1852)

He was among the most active contributors to Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

's Neue Zeitschrift für Musik

Neue Zeitschrift für Musik

Die Neue Zeitschrift für Musik was a music magazine published in Leipzig, co-founded by Robert Schumann, his teacher and future father-in law Friedrich Wieck, and his close friend Ludwig Schuncke...

. Other journals he contributed to were Caecilia (edited by Gottfried Weber

Gottfried Weber

Jacob Gottfried Weber , was a prominent German writer on music , composer, and jurist....

), Eufonia, Tageblatt, and Zeitgenossen.