Bálint Bakfark (ca.1507 – 1576) was a Hungarian
composer of Transylvanian Saxon origin, and lutenist of
the Renaissance. He was enormously influential as a
lutenist in his time, and renowned as a virtuoso on the
instrument. He was born in Brassó, Transylvania,
Kingdom of Hungary (today Brașov in Romania), into
a family of Transylvanian Saxon origin. An orphan, he
was brought up by the Greff family and was educated in
Buda at the court of John Zápolya. Bakfark remained
there until 1540,...(+)
Bálint Bakfark (ca.1507 – 1576) was a Hungarian
composer of Transylvanian Saxon origin, and lutenist of
the Renaissance. He was enormously influential as a
lutenist in his time, and renowned as a virtuoso on the
instrument. He was born in Brassó, Transylvania,
Kingdom of Hungary (today Brașov in Romania), into
a family of Transylvanian Saxon origin. An orphan, he
was brought up by the Greff family and was educated in
Buda at the court of John Zápolya. Bakfark remained
there until 1540, though he possibly traveled to Italy
once during this time.
Sometime in the 1540s he traveled to Paris, but,
finding the position of lutenist to the king filled, he
left for Jagiellon Poland in 1549, where he was
employed as a court lutenist by Sigismund II Augustus.
From then until 1566, he traveled extensively around
Europe, with his renown increasing, but remained
faithful to his employer in spite of numerous efforts
by other monarchs to win him away; the riches bestowed
on him by Sigismund may have affected his decision to
remain attached to the court of Palace of the Grand
Dukes of Lithuania in Vilnius.
What happened to him in 1566 is not precisely known,
but he clearly did something to provoke the wrath of
the king, and scarcely had time to flee before Polish
army troops ransacked his house and destroyed his
possessions. After this, he lived for a while in Vienna
and then returned to Transylvania, but not for long; in
1571 he moved to Padua in Italy, where he remained
until his death during the plague of 1576. As was
common practice at the time, all the possessions of
plague victims were destroyed by fire, so most of his
manuscript music was lost.
While Bakfark almost certainly wrote an enormous amount
of music, very little was printed: a commonly given
reason was that it was simply too difficult for others
to play. His surviving works include ten fantasies,
seven madrigals, eight chansons, and fourteen
motets—all in amazingly faithful polyphonic
arrangements for lute alone. Additionally, he
transcribed vocal motets by contemporary composers such
as Josquin des Prez, Clemens non Papa, Nicolas Gombert,
and Orlando di Lasso into arrangements for the
lute.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A1lint_Bakfark).
Although originally composed for 4 Viols, I created
this interpretation of the Fantasia I in B Minor for
String Quartet (Violin, Viola & 2 Cellos).
SHEET MUSIC