Paul Hofhaimer

Sources are somewhat contradictory on his early life, with Vadian asserting that he was self-taught, and the Nuremberg humanist Conrad Celtes saying that he acquired his technique at the court of Emperor Frederick III.

Hofhaimer went to Innsbruck in 1478, and so impressed Archduke Sigismund of Tyrol that he was given a lifetime appointment as court organist in 1480.

The handful of pieces for organ which have survived show Hofhaimer's gift for composing polyphonic lines around a cantus firmus.

He rarely used the smooth polyphonic texture then being cultivated by the Franco-Flemish composers such as Josquin or Gombert, a style he probably first encountered in Innsbruck with the music of Isaac.

From 1969, (the 450th anniversary year of Emperor Maximilian I's death), the city of Innsbruck has awarded the Paul Hofhaimer Prize for interpretations of organ compositions by old masters.