Printed Songbooks
From the perspective of musical communication networks and source typology, the principal driver behind the dissemination of the German polyphonic song around 1500 was the new medium of music printing. In the final decade of Maximilian’s life, this gave the song a brief but brilliant moment of public prominence through printed partbooks and song pamphlets. In these sources, the media interests of Maximilian and his entourage converged with an accumulated song repertoire and the receptiveness of a widely dispersed audience. A representative example is the printed songbook » Aus sonderer künstlicher Art, issued in 1512 by the imperial printer Erhart Öglin in Augsburg (cf. » Fig. Hofhaimer, Ach lieb mit leid). Further sets of partbooks were published elsewhere between 1510 and 1517 by the presses of Johann Froschauer (?), Peter Schöffer the Younger, and Arnt von Aich.[19] These publications predominantly reflect the song repertoire available at the imperial court and the (at times allied, at times rival) Württemberg court – that is, works by Habsburg and Stuttgart composers. However, they also include pieces by figures such as the respected Saxon composer Adam von Fulda, whose songs are also found in the musical “travel dossier” of the Augsburg Choirbook and in Swiss sources. The overlap between polyphonic settings and the mostly monophonic melodies found in song pamphlets – usually limited to texts or melodic cues (“to be sung to the tune of …”) – remains small before 1520. We can only imagine how those songs sounded that were sung across the German lands without elaborate polyphonic arrangements and in everyday contexts.
Specialised printers interpreted the demand for song publications as indicative of a growing market. While this commercial calculation proved successful in the case of song pamphlets, the production of complex songbooks during the era of multi-phase printing evidently proved too labour-intensive to be economically viable. It was probably due to this financial consideration that the last surviving edition containing polyphonic German songs printed with multi-phase technology dates from 1517. The advent of an optimised technology, single impression music printing, in 1534, ushered in a new era of large-scale song publication.[20]
[19] See above note 4.
[1] For example, So lanc so meer as So lang si mir (in I-TRbc 90, fol. 344v) or Een vraulic wesen as Ein frölich wesenn (in the songbook of Johannes Heer, CH-SGs Ms. 462, fol. 28v–30r).
[2] Binchois’ Dueil angoisseux becomes De langwesus in I-TRbc 88, fol. 204v, De langwesus; of the frottola line “Tente a l’ora, ruzinente, ch’io vo’ cantar” only “Dentelore” remains in the manuscript CH-Bu F X 1–4 (fol. 97), written by the Augsburg scribe Johann Wüst; a quodlibet from the Sagan partbooks (No. 118) quotes the songs Rabaßkadol and Panny, pany, baby (“Woman, woman, old woman”).
[4] These are RISM numbers 1512/1, 1513/2, [1513]/3, [1513]/3 (published in Mainz in 1517), and 1519]/5 (a woodcut reprint of a lost songbook originally published around 1510 in Augsburg, printed 1514/1515, see Schwindt 2008).
[5] On all three manuscripts, see Strohm 1993, 492–503.
[8] According to Strohm 1993, 519, and Strohm 2001, 23, the manuscript was originally in the possession of the choir school of St. Jakob, Innsbruck, whose members were employed for musical service at court. See also » G. Nicolaus Krombsdorfer.
[10] I-TRbc 89, fol. 388v–389r; I-Fn, B.R. 229, fol. 174v–175r; » Guter seltzamer und kunstreicher teutscher Gesangk; Nürnberg 1544, Nr. 8: “Heyaho nun wie sie grollen dort auff dem Ritten die geschwollen” in the Secunda pars, T. 76–85; textual reference at the beginning, bars 1–13: “Woll wir aber heben an den Danhauser zu singen” (DTÖ 147/148, 63 and 69 f.).
[11] Bienenfeld 1904/1905, 96, note 2.
[12] CH-Zz, Ms. G 438 (written c. 1524); Pfisterer 2013.
[13] A-Wn Mus.Hs. 18810 (c. 1524) and D-Mu, 8°Cod. ms. 328–331 (before 1527), also known as the “Welser Songbook”.
[14] Also known as the “Herwart” or “Augsburg Songbook”.
[15] Birkendorf 1994, vol. 1, 98.
[16] Schwindt 2013, 126–130.
[17] D-W, Cod. Guelf. 78.Quodl.4 (Southern Germany c. 1505); D-Mbs Mus. ms. 4483 (Southern Germany c. 1515); A-Wn Cod. 4337 (Vienna, early 1520s); D-W Cod. Guelf. 292 Musica hdschr. (Constance?, c. 1525).
[18] CH-Bu F X 10 (1510); CH-Bu F X 5–9 (Fascicle I: c. 1510); CH-Bu F X 1–4 (Fascicle I: c. 1517/1518, Fascicle II: c. 1524); CH-Bu F VI 26 (first quarter of the sixteenth century); CH-SGs Ms. 462 (1510–1516, 1530), also known as the “Heer Songbook”.
[19] See above note 4.
[20] RISM 1534/17: » Der erst teil. Hundert vnd ainundzweintzig newe Lieder…, hrsg. von Johann Ott, Nürnberg 1534.
[21] Sterl 1971, 24. Grünwald/Gruenwolt is documented as Persefant (under-herald) in Regensburg from 1483–1487.
[22] Grosch 2013, 48–54.
[23] A-Wn Cod. 3027 (Passau c. 1492–1494), fol. 174v–177r: “Von yppliklichen dingen”. Score reproduction in Curschmann 1970, 22 f.
[24] Quodlibet No. XX quotes the couplet “Da schalt sie jhn ein trollen, ein truncken vnd ein vollen” from the middle of the third Hesselloher stanza (Secunda pars, bars 133–137, rhythm corresponds to the song model, diastematic contour slightly modified, see DTÖ 147/148, 132).
[25] A-Whh RR V (1489-1492): Wien, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Reichsregister vol. V (1489–1492), fol. 60r.
[26] “Die situationsbasierten Thematisierungsverfahren lassen die Liebe vor allem als kulturelles Handeln in konventionalisierten Umständen erscheinen” (The situation-based methods of thematisation present love primarily as cultural action in conventionalised circumstances): Hübner 2013, 107.
[27] The earliest available source for the polyphonic Elslein song is the Sagan partbooks (PL-Kj Berol. Mus.ms. 40098). There is indeed an earlier transmission from around 1455 in the form of a monophonic melody, but with a Latin text Gaudeamus pariter (CZ-Pnm Vysehrad 376, fol. 39v; digitised in the database Melodiarum hymnologicum Bohemiae: http://tinyurl.com/gaudeamuspariter). It is very likely – or at least possible – that this is a sacred contrafactum of the secular monophonic Elslein song, though this cannot yet be documented.
[28] The earliest sources for this popular song are a broadside print of the text by Albert Kunne (Memmingen, c. 1501, see http://tinyurl.com/Ich-stund-Kunne, metadata at http://tinyurl.com/Kunne-meta) uand a freely paraphrased adaptation of melodic elements under the text marker in the tenor “Ich stund an einem Morgen”, entered around 1499/1500 on fols. 221v–222r in the Berlin mensural codex D-B Mus. ms. 40021. Both suggest a widely known song melody, although no earlier written version is currently documented.
[29] D-B Ms. germ. oct. 280, fol. 48b–49b (Nr. 33): Ich sien den morgenssterren.
[30] Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Geheimes Hausarchiv, 601, XXVI, letter from Duke Philipp to his father Wilhelm V dated 13.10.1593.
[31] On the history of the term, see Grosch 2013, 23–33. See also » B. Minnesang und alte Meister on the terminological tradition of “tenores”, which was initially not associated with polyphony.
[32] Complete transcription of both songs and further remarks in Strohm 1993, 496–499.
[34] Strohm 1989; Leverett 1995; Höink 2012. The overview should also include the Missa Ducis Saxsoniae Sing ich nit wol composed by Nicolas Champion dit Liegeois, whose song basis is already recorded before the South German manuscript D-WGl Lutherhalle Ms. 403/1048 (c. 1535/1536) in Bernhard Rem’s partbook setting D-Mu, 8°Cod. ms. 328–331 (before 1527).
[35] D-Mbs Mus. ms. 3154, fol. 53v: Tannhauser Ihr seid mir lieb (3v), fol. 151r: Veni creator spiritus, and Thanhauser jr seit mir lieb. Heidrich 2005, 54 ff.
[36] Klüpfel; Karl (ed.): Urkunden zur Geschichte des Schwäbischen Bundes (1488–1533), vol. 1, Stuttgart 1846, 24.
[37] On authorship, see Leverett 1995; on the musical style in the context of Frederick III, see Schmalz 1987; on the title, see Strohm 1989.
[38] Schwindt 2006, 51–56.
[40] See Schwindt 2013, 127 and 133.
[41] Edited in Adler/Koller 1900, 269. Further details on this song and its text in Schwindt 1999, 58–62.
[42] Hübner 2013, 107.
Recommended Citation:
Nicole Schwindt: “Songs in the Austrian Region, c. 1450-c.1520”, in: Musical Life of the Late Middle Ages in the Austrian Region <https://musical-life.net/en/essays/songs-austrian-region-c-1450-c-1520> (2026); slightly revised AI-assisted translation of the original German essay (2016).