Heinrich Isaac

Heinrich Isaac, a prolific Flemish composer, has already achieved some prominence when he settles in 1484 in Florence, where, except for sojourns in Rome and Austria, he will remain.

His secular music, which includes songs in French, German, Italian, and Latin as well as instrumental pieces, reflects his ability to absorb the musical traditions of the different countries in which he has lived.

However, his sacred music—comprising masses and motets written in the polyphonic style of his native Flanders— best reveals his genius and the total mastery of his art.

His most famous work, the “Choralis Constantinus,” comprises more than three hundred settings of mass propers for all Sundays and many feast days of the liturgical year, and also contains five settings of the ordinary of the mass.

The prolific Heinrich Isaac, the most celebrated composer of the Renaissance Flemish school, has, through his sojourns in Austria, helped to expand the languages of court and church composition, both in Vienna and in the larger German cities.

Although his secular music, which includes songs in French, German, Italian, and Latin as well as instrumental pieces, reflects his ability to absorb the musical traditions of the different countries in which he lived, his sacred music—comprising masses and motets written in the polyphonic style of his native Flanders—that best reveals his genius and the total mastery of his art.

Between 1505 and 1512 there are records of Isaac having dealings in Augsburg, Florence and Constance, the latter in which he had compiled his largest set of works: Choralis Constantinus.

This monumental collection of mass propers, commissioned by the Constance cathedral on April 14, 1508, had been completed by Isaac and his student Ludwig Senfl by the winter of 1509.

Isaac and his wife Bartolomea were almost definitely back in Florence by this time since the completed Choralis Constantinus had to be mailed to the cathedral.

A collection of more than three hundred settings of mass propers for all Sundays and many feast days of the liturgical year, Choralis Constantinus contains five settings of the ordinary of the mass as well.

Isaac had on January 4, 1512 bartered his house in Florence for a smaller one, signifying his settling down.

He and his wife probably remain here except for a few short trips until his death.

Isaac also had made a point to revise his will on November 24, 1512, in which he requested that a mass be said every year forever at Santissima Annunziata or another church should Annunziata be unable.

Bartolomea will be able to pay for these masses with provisions.

He had been given an honorary position as chief of the polyphic chapel at Santa Maria del Fiore on May 30, 1514, which serves as a pension.

Isaac has also continued to receive payments from the court of Maximilian I regardless of his living in Florence.

In 1517, Pope Leo X makes a visit to Florence, where he almost certainly would have heard Isaac's music performed.

Shortly before his death, Isaac writes a third and final will, which shortens his previous request to instead have a commemorative mass said every year for ten years.

Isaac dies on March 26, 1517.

Santissima Annunziata receives payment the following day to hold his funeral.

A last posthumous donation is made to the confraternity of Santa Barbara in the amount of five florins, which is equal to one quarter the value of Isaac's home.