Paul Hofhaimer (25 January 1459 – 1537) was an Austrian
organist
An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ (music), organ. An organist may play organ repertoire, solo organ works, play with an musical ensemble, ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumentalist, instrumental ...
and composer. He was particularly gifted at
improvisation
Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...
, and was regarded as the finest organist of his age by many writers, including
Vadian and
Paracelsus
Paracelsus (; ; 1493 – 24 September 1541), born Theophrastus von Hohenheim (full name Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim), was a Swiss physician, alchemist, lay theologian, and philosopher of the German Renaissance.
He w ...
; in addition he was one of only two German-speaking composers of the time (
Heinrich Isaac
Heinrich Isaac (ca. 1450 – 26 March 1517) was a Netherlandish Renaissance composer of south Netherlandish origin. He wrote masses, motets, songs (in French, German and Italian), and instrumental music. A significant contemporary of Josquin de ...
was the other) who had a reputation in Europe outside of German-speaking countries. He is grouped among the composers known as the
Colorists.
Life
He was born in
Radstadt
Radstadt (Central Bavarian: ''Rodstoud'' or ''Rodstod'') is a historic town in the district of St. Johann im Pongau in the Austrian state of Salzburg.
Geography
The town is part of the Salzburg Pongau region. It is located in the valley of the ...
, near
Salzburg
Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian) is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872.
The town is on the site of the ...
. Sources are somewhat contradictory on his early life, with Vadian asserting that he was self-taught, and the
Nuremberg
Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...
humanist
Konrad Celtis
Conrad Celtes (german: Konrad Celtes; la, Conradus Celtis (Protucius); 1 February 1459 – 4 February 1508) was a German Renaissance humanist scholar and poet of the German Renaissance born in Franconia (nowadays part of Bavaria). He led the ...
saying that he acquired his technique at the court of Emperor
Frederick III. Hofhaimer went to
Innsbruck
Innsbruck (; bar, Innschbruck, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian ) is the capital of Tyrol (state), Tyrol and the List of cities and towns in Austria, fifth-largest city in Austria. On the Inn (river), River Inn, at its junction with the ...
in 1478, and so impressed
Archduke Sigismund of
Tyrol
Tyrol (; historically the Tyrole; de-AT, Tirol ; it, Tirolo) is a historical region in the Alps - in Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Emp ...
that he was given a lifetime appointment as court organist in 1480. He almost certainly knew Heinrich Isaac well while he was in Innsbruck, since Isaac became court composer there later that decade.
In 1489 he began serving
Maximilian I as organist, but he did this in addition to his Innsbruck service. In 1498, after several years of travel, during which time he visited the
Saxon
The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic
*
*
*
*
peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
court of Elector
Frederick the Wise
Frederick III (17 January 1463 – 5 May 1525), also known as Frederick the Wise (German ''Friedrich der Weise''), was Elector of Saxony from 1486 to 1525, who is mostly remembered for the worldly protection of his subject Martin Luther.
Freder ...
, he moved to
Passau
Passau (; bar, label=Central Bavarian, Båssa) is a city in Lower Bavaria, Germany, also known as the Dreiflüssestadt ("City of Three Rivers") as the river Danube is joined by the Inn from the south and the Ilz from the north.
Passau's popu ...
, and in 1507 he moved to
Augsburg
Augsburg (; bar , Augschburg , links=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabian_German , label=Swabian German, , ) is a city in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany, around west of Bavarian capital Munich. It is a university town and regional seat of the ' ...
, where he could be closer to Maximilian. Maximilian and the king of Poland made him a knight and nobleman in 1515, conferring on him the title of "First Organist to the Emperor". Hofhaimer's last move was to
Salzburg
Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian) is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872.
The town is on the site of the ...
, where he remained as organist at
Salzburg Cathedral
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until his death.
Life as a travelling musician at the peripatetic imperial court was harsh. Hofhaimer had to move frequently between Augsburg, Vienna, Innsbruck and other cities. The musicians even encountered mortal danger as they followed the Emperor during his military campaigns. Later, in 1524, when he had already joined the service of the Archbishop of Salzburg, Hofhaimer claimed in a letter to
Vadianus: "Ich dannck got, das ich nymmer wye ayn zigeyner umraysen bedorff." ("I thank God that I no longer have to travel like a gypsy.")
Music and influence
Hofhaimer was a spectacularly gifted improviser, and witnesses attested to his unequaled gift; he could play for hours, never repeating himself: "one would wonder not so much how the ocean gets all the water with which to feed the rivers, but how this man gets the ideas for all his melodies." Not only was he a performing musician, though, he was the teacher of an entire generation of German organists: and the famous school of German organists of the
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
era can trace much of its lineage to Hofhaimer. In addition, some of the organists he trained went on to Italy, for example
Dionisio Memno, who became organist at
St. Mark's in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
, and there passed on technique learned from Hofhaimer to the organists who were part of the early
Venetian school.
While he was most prolific as a composer for organ, little of that music has survived in its original form. Most of the surviving works are either
German songs
Germany claims some of the most renowned composers, singers, producers and performers of the world. Germany is the largest music market in Europe, and third largest in the world.
German classical music is one of the most performed in the world; ...
in three or four voices, or arrangements (
intabulation Intabulation, from the Italian word ''intavolatura'', refers to an arrangement of a vocal or ensemble piece for keyboard, lute, or other plucked string instrument, written in tablature.
History
Intabulation was a common practice in 14th–16th c ...
s) of them for either keyboard or
lute
A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted.
More specifically, the term "lute" can ref ...
. The large quantity of surviving copies of his songs from different locations in Europe, usually in arrangements, attests to their popularity. The handful of pieces for organ which have survived show Hofhaimer's gift for composing
polyphonic
Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, h ...
lines around a
cantus firmus
In music, a ''cantus firmus'' ("fixed melody") is a pre-existing melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition.
The plural of this Latin term is , although the corrupt form ''canti firmi'' (resulting from the grammatically incorrect tr ...
.
His German lieder are typical of the time, and usually in
bar form
Bar form (German: ''die Barform'' or ''der Bar'') is a musical form of the pattern AAB.
Original use
The term comes from the rigorous terminology of the Meistersinger guilds of the 15th to 18th century who used it to refer to their songs and the ...
, with one section being polyphonic and the other being more
chordal. He rarely used the smooth polyphonic texture then being cultivated by the
Franco-Flemish
The designation Franco-Flemish School, also called Netherlandish School, Burgundian School, Low Countries School, Flemish School, Dutch School, or Northern School, refers, somewhat imprecisely, to the style of polyphonic vocal music composition or ...
composers such as
Josquin
Josquin Lebloitte dit des Prez ( – 27 August 1521) was a composer of High Renaissance music, who is variously described as French or Franco-Flemish. Considered one of the greatest composers of the Renaissance, he was a central figure of the ...
or
Gombert
Nicolas Gombert (c. 1495 – c. 1560)Atlas, p. 396 was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. He was one of the most famous and influential composers between Josquin des Prez and Palestrina, and best represents the fully developed, complex ...
, a style he probably first encountered in Innsbruck with the music of Isaac.
Hofhaimer was also well known as an organ consultant, and frequently advised on the building and maintenance of organs.
Commemoration
From 1969, (the 450th anniversary year of Emperor Maximilian I's death), the city of Innsbruck has awarded the ''Paul-Hofhaimer-Preis'' (Paul Hohaimer Prize) for interpretations of organ compositions by old masters. An international competition takes place every three years for the prize.
References and further reading
* Manfred Schuler, "Paul Hofhaimer", ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980.
*
Gustave Reese
Gustave Reese ( ; 29 November 1899 – 7 September 1977) was an American musicologist and teacher. Reese is known mainly for his work on medieval and Renaissance music, particularly with his two publications ''Music in the Middle Ages'' (1940) ...
, ''Music in the Renaissance''. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954.
* Luscinius, quoted by Manfred Schuler in New Grove article; paraphrased.
* Tobias Calinski: ''Catull in Bild und Ton'', WBG, Darmstadt 2021, 311-333
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hofhaimer, Paul
Renaissance composers
Austrian classical composers
Austrian classical organists
Male classical organists
Cathedral organists
Organ improvisers
1459 births
1537 deaths
Austrian male classical composers