Instrumental Music at the Court of Maximilian I

While the personnel of Maximilian’s instrumental music can be relatively easily identified through archival records and documents, it is much more challenging to identify or even grasp the music played by these musicians. This is primarily because instrumental music at that time was rarely recorded and was essentially a non-written practice. In this sense, the musicians did not “improvise,” but rather they played “by heart,” so to speak, either based on oral tradition or as ad hoc creations.[32] Written records were mainly typical for vocal music – accordingly, in the Triumphzug, only the carriage of the “Musica Canterey” shows a music stand, while all other musicians perform without musical notation. Specific writings for instrumental music, known as tablatures, existed at the beginning of the sixteenth century for keyboard instruments and lutes. Indeed, music by Maximilian’s musicians is preserved in both notations: by Paul Hofhaimer and Adolf Blindhamer (see the chapter “Lute Intabulations by Adolf Blindhamer”). Further sources of instrumental music can be identified from the title page of a songbook printed in four partbooks (Seventy-Five Beautiful Songs, Cologne: Arnt von Aich, 1514-1515): “In this book one finds seventy-five beautiful songs with Discant, Altus, Bass and Tenor, pleasant to sing. Also some to play on flutes, shawms, and other musical instruments.”[33] Accordingly, the songs, for which the lyrics are found separately in the tenor partbook, can also be performed instrumentally. Interestingly, the print is most likely a reprint of a collection that first appeared in Augsburg but is now lost, containing repertoire from Maximilian’s circle.[34] Therefore, the two Augsburg song prints “Of special artistic kind” (» 1512) and “[68 Songs]” (» 1513), published by Erhart Oeglin, can also be claimed for Maximilian’s instrumental music, although it must be noted that this is clearly vocal music that could also be performed instrumentally.

This looks somewhat different in the case of a manuscript source for which a loose connection to the repertoire of Maximilian’s musicians is also suspected: the “Augsburger Liederbuch” (» D-As Cod. 2o142a), a music manuscript created between 1505 and 1515, containing a mixed content of songs, chansons, and motets (including works by Josquin Desprez, Jacob Obrecht, Heinrich Isaac, Alexander Agricola, and Ludwig Senfl (» G. Kap. Senfls musikgeschichtliche Bedeutung) as well as some dance pieces.[35] These mostly untitled pieces can be identified as Italian dances, as brought back by musicians like Schubinger from their service in Italy. However, the written-down music only provides a rough idea of its captivating performance practice, as seen in a letter from Maximilian in 1479 from the Netherlands, stating that his pipers “almost played him to death three or four times.”[36]