Recordare (No. 84 from Leonhard Kleber's organ tablature, SBB, Mus. ms. 40026, fol. 120v–124v)

Hans Buchner was one of the key composers who contributed significantly to the development of an independent style of organ music in southern Germany in the 16th century.

Born in Ravensburg in 1483—the same year as Martin Luther—and the son of an organist, Buchner belonged to the “Paulominen,” the wide and influential circle of students of Paul Hofhaimer (1459–1537), the highly renowned court organist of Emperor Maximilian I, in whose service the young Buchner may also have been for a time, before taking up a position as cathedral organist at the Minster of Our Lady in Constance in the summer of 1506, which became a lifetime appointment six years later. The free city on Lake Constance was an important cultural center at the time – in 1508 Heinrich Isaac created his monumental motet collection „Choralis Constantinus“ for the cathedral chapter there.

After the cathedral organ was destroyed by fire in 1511, the chapter decided four years later to build a new instrument, whose construction was supervised by Buchner as an organ expert. There is conflicting information about the organ, completed in 1521 – some sources mention two manuals and 27 stops, others three manuals and 31 stops, while Michael Praetorius, who praised it almost a hundred years later, even spoke of 70 stops. It is certain, however, that it was among the largest and finest organs in Germany at the time.

Soon afterwards, Buchner was forced to part with his cathedral organ: after Constance joined the Reformation, the prince-bishop and Catholic clergy had to leave the city and move to Meersburg, while the cathedral chapter now held its services in Überlingen. When Buchner, who was widely sought after as an organ expert throughout southern Germany, advised the cathedral chapter in Speyer in 1529, he also tried in vain to obtain the organist’s position there. Increasingly impoverished and embittered as a result of the severe decline in his professional activity after the Reformation, he died in 1538.