Hofhaimer [Hofhaymer, Hoffhaimer, Hoffheimer, Hofhamer], Paul [Paulus, Meister Pauls]

(b Radstadt, 25 Jan 1459; d Salzburg, 1537). Austrian organist and composer. The date of his birth is derived from the non-speculative section of the astrologer Garcaeus’s Methodus (Basle, 1570). According to the humanist Joachim Vadian, Hofhaimer was self-taught; however, Conradus Celtis wrote that he learnt to play the organ at the court of Emperor Frederick III. From 1478 he was at the court of Duke Sigmund of Tyrol in Innsbruck, and in 1480 he was given a life appointment as an organist. In 1486 he travelled at the command of his employer to Frankfurt for the coronation of Maximilian I as King of the Romans. Without giving up his previous post, Hofhaimer also served Maximilian from 1489. In that year the Hungarian queen, Beatrice, tried in vain to attract him to her court. A journey with Maximilian I's Kantorei to the Netherlands in 1494 brought him into contact with the Saxon Elector Frederick the Wise, whose court he visited again in 1494, 1498–9 and 1516. In 1498 Hofhaimer's ties with Maximilian were loosened, allowing him to make his home in Passau some years later. It cannot be shown whether he was then organist to the Bishop of Passau, nor can the possibility be excluded that he was also employed as organist to the Bavarian ducal court in Munich before 1508. At the wish of Maximilian, who in 1506 strengthened his hold on him again, he settled in Augsburg in 1507. In 1515 he reached the peak of his career when he was made a knight and a nobleman by Maximilian and the Polish king. From that time on he was allowed to call himself the ‘obrister Organist’ (first organist) to the emperor (see illustration). After Maximilian's death in 1519, Hofhaimer became organist at Salzburg Cathedral and organist to the Archbishop of Salzburg, Cardinal Matthäus Lang, remaining there until his death.

According to contemporary witnesses, Hofhaimer was the most important organist of his time. Vadian wrote that it was generally agreed that Hofhaimer had no equal. Another contemporary, the poet and imperial diplomat Cuspinian, called him ‘musicorum princeps’. The humanists Celtis, Luscinius, Pirckheimer and Paracelsus also bore witness to his mastery. Hofhaimer seems to have been unsurpassed in the art of improvisation: ‘He uses such unending variety’, wrote Luscinius, ‘that one can listen to him playing for years and wonder not so much where the ocean finds the water to feed all the rivers as where this man finds his tunes’. Hofhaimer shone as an organist at several sessions of the Reichstag which he visited in the emperor's retinue. He achieved a lasting influence on the younger generation of organists thanks to his considerable activity as a teacher. Two years after Hofhaimer's death, the humanist Stomius wrote: ‘If the art of organ playing is flourishing everywhere today, this is mostly the result of [Hofhaimer's] teaching activity’. Among the large number of his pupils (called ‘Paulomines’ by Luscinius) were the following: Dionisio Memo, organist of S Marco, Venice; Hans Buchner, organist of Konstanz Cathedral; Hans Kotter, organist of the collegiate church of St Nikolaus, Fribourg; Conrad Bruman, organist of Speyer Cathedral; Johann Schachinger, organist of Passau Cathedral; and Wolfgang Grefinger, organist of the Stephansdom, Vienna. Hofhaimer also had a considerable reputation as an expert on organs and he was called in several times when organs were being built: Bozen (now Bolzano) in 1486–7, Sterzing (now Vipiteno) in 1490, Innsbruck in 1491–2 and 1512–15, Salzburg in 1505 and Eisenerz in 1513. According to Cuspinian, he was very interested in the making and developing of instruments. He showed himself more receptive to classical scholarship than almost any other organist or composer of his time.

Apparently only a fraction of Hofhaimer's compositions has survived, the loss being particularly heavy in his organ works. The only collection published under his name, Harmoniae poeticae (Nuremberg, 1539) consists of settings of odes by Horace. These compositions, which belong to the later part of Hofhaimer's creative career, are chordal and follow the classical taste of his age. The majority of his output must have been in the area of songwriting, for Vadian wrote that Hofhaimer used to ‘compose the most charming lieder with musical settings which were by no means ordinary’. Some of the texts he set are his own. Almost without exception, the extant lieder are based on court song melodies which are usually given to the tenor, but sometimes also to other voices. They are written in bar form, often with a polyphonic Stollen contrasted with a fairly chordal Abgesang. The phrase structure is always clear, usually without the overlapping polyphony characteristic of the Franco-Flemish school. These works have an important place in the extant repertory of the late medieval German lied.

Only two of Hofhaimer's liturgical organ compositions have survived, Recordare and Salve regina. They show that the composer was a master in the art of composing over a cantus firmus. Although, in both style and expression, these pieces have many links with the past, they also show pointers to the future; the imitative handling of a cantus firmus divided into sections is part of the principle of their structure. Hofhaimer provided the keyboard transcriptions with ornaments that split up the phrase like filigree and as a result of his ornamentation technique he had a widespread influence. Some of his pupils, the Paulomines mentioned above, were not able to display the continual invention that marks his work, often falling into stereotyped patterns. Hofhaimer's music was clearly popular: it survives in many sources, and there are numerous intabulations of his pieces for keyboard or lute. (For further illustration see Chapel.)

WORKS

Editions: ‘Gesammelte Tonwerke’, ed. H.J. Moser, Paul Hofhaimer (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1929/R) [M]Das deutsche Gesellschaftslied in Oesterreich, 1480–1550, ed. L. Nowak, DTÖ, lxxii, Jg.xxxvii/2 (1930/R) [N]Georg Forster: Frische teutsche Liedlein (1539–1556), ed. K. Gudewill, EDM, 1st ser., xx (1942/R) [G]Tabulaturen des XVI. Jahrhunderts, i: Die Tabulaturen aus dem Besitz des Basler Humanisten Bonifacius Amerbach, ed. H.J. Marx, SMd, vi (1967) [Ma i]Tabulaturen des XVI. Jahrhunderts, ii: Die Orgeltabulatur des Clemens Hör, ed. H.J. Marx, SMd, vii (1970) [Ma ii]

vocal works and intabulations

other intabulations and instrumental pieces

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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H.J. Moser: Paul Hofhaimer, ein Lied- und Orgelmeister des deutschen Humanismus (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1929, enlarged 2/1966)

L. Hoffmann-Erbrecht: ‘Paul Hofhaimer in Salzburg’, Festschrift Heinrich Besseler, ed. E. Klemm (Leipzig, 1961), 211–14

M. Schuler: ‘Zur Orgelkunst am Hof Kaiser Maximilians I.’, Musik und Tanz zur Zeit Kaiser Maximilian I.: Innsbruck 1989, 123–30

MANFRED SCHULER