On freudt verzer - Fantasia

Paul Hofhaimer (1459–1537) was an Austrian Renaissance organist and composer. Thanks to his family, with several organists, as well as the favor of the Habsburgs - he served the cultured Maximilian I - he earned such distinction that the emperor knighted him. He was regarded as the emperor’s leading organist in Innsbruck, and after the emperor’s death, he served as cathedral organist in Salzburg. He possessed an extraordinary ability to improvise at the organ and influenced numerous musicians as a teacher; his students were known as the “Paulomines.” He is also known for his polyphonic songs - often those featuring a leading tenor voice - which he developed compositionally from court melodies and folk songs. Although few of his organ pieces are known, one can gain an impression of his talent in this regard from the profane song “On freudt verzer” (I spend my day without joy), which deals with deep emotions associated with heartbreaking love. In his *On the History of Organ Playing*, A.G. Ritter quotes from Ambros’s *History of Music* regarding this: “the impression of a powerful organ prelude. Indeed, that three-part movement differs from most other songs in some respects in favor of an organ-like style. Those appear as simply structured chorales (…) In the latter, all breaks in the melody (…) are covered by the uninterrupted flow of the two lower voices, and the whole flows all the more continuously, and all the more organ-like (…) so that harmony remains the sole connecting thread”.

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