Maximilian’s chapels in Austria: foreign and local members and practices

In 1490, Maximilian took over lordship of the Tyrol, moving his court to Innsbruck and initiating a gradual hand-over of power in the Low Countries to his son Philip the Fair. Most of Maximilian’s Burgundian singers passed into Philip’s service. However, a small group, including the choirmaster Nicolas Mayoul Sr., visited Austria in 1492.[5] Maximilian soon appointed native Austrian singers to his chapel at Innsbruck, including some who had previously served in the chapel of his father, Emperor Frederick III, such as Hanns Kerner. Maximilian appointed the Flemish singer Henricus Isaac as court composer in 1497.[6] Over the next two decades, Isaac would supply music for Maximilian’s court, including polyphonic settings of the propers of mass, settings of the mass ordinary, songs, sacred motets, songs and instrumental music (» D. Isaac im Dienst von Maximilian; » I. Henricus Isaac’s Amazonas). He also contributed to the diffusion of the musical style of Maximilian’s chapel through commissions for other places, most notably the polyphonic propers he wrote for the cathedral of Constance. Decades after his death, Isaac’s settings of the propers (both for Constance and for Maximilian’s chapel) were still sufficiently prized that they were collected and printed under the title » Choralis Constantinus.

Isaac’s students further disseminated his style. Adam Rener, a native of the Low Countries who was trained in Maximilian’s chapel and presumably learned composition from Isaac, was later employed as singer and composer at the Saxon court at Torgau. Isaac’s most famous student was Ludwig Senfl (» G. Ludwig Senfl). In an autobiographical song, Lust hab ich ghabt zur Musica, Senfl describes his training in Maximilian’s chapel under Isaac’s instruction.[7] This document provides a rare insight into a leading composer’s reflection on his own process of artistic maturation. After Maximilian’s death, Senfl edited a retrospective collection of motets from the repertoire of Maximilian’s chapel, » Liber selectarum cantionum (Augsburg: Grimm and Wyrsung, 1520).[8] This book includes several occasional pieces, such as Virgo prudentissima, written to rally support amongst the assembled estates at the Diet of Constance (1507) for Maximilian’s Italian campaign, and Optime pastor, evidently written to congratulate Leo X on his election to the See of Peter in 1513 (» D. Kap. Komponiertes Herrscherlob;  » Abb. Liber selectarum cantionum).[9] Both these motets were the result of cooperation between Maximilian’s choirmaster Georgius Slatkonia, the author of the verse texts, and the composer Isaac. The text of Senfl’s Sancte pater divumque decus, a motet in honour of St Gregory included in the Liber selectarum cantionum, was almost certainly written by the distinguished humanist and poet Joachim Vadianus, professor of poetics at Vienna (» I. Hofhaimer and Joachim Vadianus). The work was commissioned by Gregor Valentinianus, another member of Maximilian’s chapel, as a votive work in praise of Gregory and indirectly of Maximilian himself, whose love of music is specifically mentioned in the text.[10] After Maximilian’s death, Senfl was appointed as singer and composer at the Wittelsbach court at Munich, which thus became a further hub for the dissemination for the repertoire and taste of Maximilian’s chapel after the emperor’s death.