Ludwig Senfl

He was the most famous pupil of Heinrich Isaac, was music director to the court of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, and was an influential figure in the development of the Franco-Flemish polyphonic style in Germany.

He is known to have attended the Diet of Worms in 1521, and, while he never officially became a Protestant, his sympathies evidently were with Luther, and he was later examined by the Inquisition and voluntarily gave up his priesthood.

Senfl also wrote numerous German lieder, most of them secular (the handful on sacred texts were written for Duke Albrecht of Prussia).

They vary widely in character, from extremely simple settings of a cantus firmus to contrapuntal tours-de-force such as elaborate canons and quodlibets.

A new edition of Ludwig Senfl's works is currently being prepared at the Institute of Musicology at the University of Vienna and at the Institute of Musicology and Interpretation Research at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna by Stefan Gasch, Scott Edwards, and Sonja Tröster; the first volume of the New Senfl Edition was published in 2021.