Heinrich Isaac (c.1450 – 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 des Prez, Isaac influenced the
development of music in Germany. Several variants exist
of his name: Ysaac, Ysaak, Henricus, Arrigo d'Ugo, and
Arrigo il Tedesco among them. (Tedesco means "Flemish"
or "German" in Italian.)
Little is known about Isaac's early ...(+)
Heinrich Isaac (c.1450 – 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 des Prez, Isaac influenced the
development of music in Germany. Several variants exist
of his name: Ysaac, Ysaak, Henricus, Arrigo d'Ugo, and
Arrigo il Tedesco among them. (Tedesco means "Flemish"
or "German" in Italian.)
Little is known about Isaac's early life (or indeed
what he called himself), but it is probable that he was
born in Flanders, probably in Brabant. During the late
15th century, standards of music education in the
region were excellent, and he was probably educated in
his homeland, although the location is not known.
Sixteenth-century Swiss music theorist and writer
Heinrich Glarean claimed Isaac for Germany by dubbing
him "Henricus Isaac Germanus", but in his will Isaac
called himself by the patronymic "Ugonis de Flandria",
'Hugo's son from Flanders'. A writer in the Milanese
Revista critica della letteratura italiana, June 1886,
speculated that this patronymic might be connected to
'Huygens' and discovered the name "Isaacke" in the town
archives of Bruges.
Isaac was one of the most prolific composers of the
time, producing an extraordinarily diverse output,
including almost all the forms and styles current at
the time; only Lassus, at the end of the 16th century,
had a wider overall range. Music composed by Isaac
included masses, motets, songs in French, German, and
Italian, as well as instrumental music. His best known
work may be the lied Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen,
of which he made at least two versions. It is possible,
however, that the melody itself is not by Isaac, and
only the setting is original. The same melody was later
used as the theme for the Lutheran chorale O Welt, ich
muss dich lassen, which was the basis of works by
Johann Sebastian Bach, including his St Matthew Passion
and Johannes Brahms.
Of his settings of the ordinary of the mass, 36
survive; others are believed to have been lost.
Numerous individual movements of masses survive as
well. But it is composition of music for the Proper of
the Mass – the portion of the liturgy which changed
on different days, unlike the ordinary, which remained
constant – which gave him his greatest fame. The huge
cycle of motets which he wrote for the mass Proper, the
Choralis Constantinus, and which he left incomplete at
his death, would have supplied music for 100 separate
days of the year.
Isaac is held in high regard for his Choralis
Constantinus. It is a huge anthology of over 450
chant-based polyphonic motets for the Proper of the
Mass. It had its origins in a commission that Isaac
received from the Cathedral in Konstanz, Germany in
April 1508 to set many of the Propers unique to the
local liturgy. Isaac was in Konstanz because Maximilian
had called a meeting of the Reichstag (German
Parliament of nobles) there and Isaac was on hand to
provide music for the Imperial court chapel choir.
After the deaths of both Maximilian and Isaac, Ludwig
Senfl, who had been Isaac's pupil as a member of the
Imperial court choir, gathered all the Isaac settings
of the Proper and placed them into liturgical order for
the church year. But the anthology was not published
until 1555, after Senfl's death, by which time the
reforms of the Council of Trent had made many of the
texts obsolete. The motets remain some of the finest
examples of chant-based Renaissance polyphony in
existence.
Isaac composed a 6-voice motet Angeli Archangeli for
the Feast of All Saint’s Day, honoring angels,
archangels, and all other saints. Another famous motet
by Isaac is Optime pastor (Optime divino), written for
the accession to the papacy of Medici pope Leo X. This
motet compares the Pope to a shepherd capable of
soothing all of his flock and binding them
together.
While in the service of the Medici in Florence, Isaac
wrote a lament on the death of Lorenzo de' Medici, Quis
dabit capiti meo aquam (1492), which set words by
Lorenzo's favorite poet, Angelo Poliziano.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Isaac).
Although originally composed for chorus (S/ATTB), I
created this Interpretation of the "Missa Carminum" for
Woodwind Quartet (Flute, Oboe, English Horn & Bassoon).
SHEET MUSIC