The Rise of Art Song under Maximilian I
Maximilian’s intensified patronage of music embraced private or at least non-representational music-making. After he returned to the German lands in 1490, composed song began to gain in popularity. This is evident in the new way in which songs from his immediate musical circle were stored in bundled form. The oldest known witness to this new interest is now accessible only indirectly and incompletely: the forty-five anonymous songs in the Zurich tenor partbook, the only surviving volume from an original set of three, copied in the 1520s by the Augsburg musician Bernhard Rem, organist to the Fugger. The repertoire, including two concordances with the Sagan partbooks (Glogau Songbook), is stylistically rooted in the 1490s.[12] Like Rem’s two other song manuscripts from this period,[13] this was apparently part of an antiquarian project from after Maximilian’s death, in which copies were made from older sources or compiled from them. The other two manuscripts copied by Rem clearly belong to Maximilian’s musical entourage, and contain songs by court composers such as Isaac, Hofhaimer, Rener, Senfl, and others. Collective authorship must remain speculative in the case of the Zurich manuscript. However, the transmission context suggests that it the repertoire it contains originated in Maximilian’s chapel. Singers circulated these songs, whether they were their own or by others.
This shift is indicative of the new function of the polyphonic song, which now became a compositional task actively pursued by members of the chapel and their associates, such as Wolfgang Grefinger in Vienna, or Hans Buchner and Sixt Dietrich in Constance and Freiburg. German songs and Franco-Flemish chansons stood side by side just as naturally as did motets by local or international composers. They were included in sources such as the musical “travel book”, the Augsburg Choirbook (» D-As Cod. 2° 142a, c. 1512–1514),[14] worked on until 1514. This source is connected to Maximilian’s Augsburg chamber secretary, councillor, and chief diplomat Matthäus Lang,[15] who himself had been trained as a choirboy. Also closely linked to the royal or imperial chancery is the extensive and Munich song manuscript » D-Mbs Mus. ms. 3155 (shortly after 1519). This manuscript contains only German songs, the lion’s share of which was composed by Isaac’s successor, the young Senfl.[16] The calligraphic script of the poems belongs to one of the secretaries involved in Maximilian’s major literary projects – possibly Marx Treitzsaurwein. Probably compiled shortly before the Viennese princely wedding of 1515 (» D. Royal Entry), it represents, as the final flourish of the almost anachronistic choirbook layout, the representative pinnacle of the documentation of courtly song culture in the Habsburg Empire.
The taste for polyphonic song that flared up around and after 1500 can be observed in many other places, although the practice of notating music in partbooks, which was increasingly adopted to notate this music, has taken a heavy toll on the transmission of sources. Nevertheless, the various fragmentary song manuscripts from the loosely defined Bavarian-Austrian region,[17] and especially the Swiss sources,[18] which survive in ever greater number from this time and provide tangible evidence of reciprocal connections to Augsburg, Freiburg, and Constance, confirm that polyphonic song had become an indispensable part of urban and educated culture.
[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”.
[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: “Lieder in der Region Österreich, ca. 1450–ca. 1520”, in: Musikleben des Spätmittelalters in der Region Österreich <https://musical-life.net/essays/lieder-der-region-osterreich-ca-1450-ca-1520> (2016).