Heinrich Isaac

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Heinrich Isaac was a South Netherlandish composer of the Renaissance, who is not as well known as his contemporaries. He was among Josquin des Prez, Jacob Obrecht, Pierre de La Rue, and Alexander Agricola as a well-known Franco-Flemish composer. According to The New Grove Dictionary for Music and Musicians, Isaac competed with Josquin des Prez for employment at the Este court of Ferrara. Although, Josquin was chosen, a court agent “reported favourably about Isaac who ‘would compose whenever asked’ and not as he pleased like Josquin (Grove 577).
His birth date is questionable, but is estimated as being between 1450 and 1455. He died in 1517 in Florence where he had spent most of his time since 1501. Except for some training and experience in the Low Countries, his musical education is not known, nor his social background. Although he did not attend a college or university, his regular education is assumed to have been exceptional.
Isaac’s three main musical employments were with S Giovanni in Florence (1485), Lorenzo de’ Medici (1484 – 1492), and Maximilian I, King of the Romans (1497) (Grout and Palisca 170). Medici supposedly arranged the marriage of Isaac to Bartolomea Bello, a Florintine artisan’s daughter (Grove 577).
His musical productivity is large and wide-ranging. He wrote 50 motets, 36 mass cycles, 13 independent settings of the Credo, 16 masses based on borrowed melodies, at least 20 further cycles based on the corresponding plainchant or the Ordinary of the Mass, and numerous French songs, love songs, and German lieder.
Isaac is best known for his German lieder Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen, which is found in the Norton Anthology of Music on pages 149 – 151. The melody of this German lied was eventually adapted to sacred words and grew to be broadly known as the chorale O Welt, ich muss dich lassen (O world, I now must leave thee).
When first listening to that song, it was better tha...