Hans Leo Hassler (in German, Hans Leo Haßler) was born on October 26, 1564, and died on June 8, 1612. He was a German composer and organist who lived during the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. He was the older brother of Jakob Hassler, a composer who is not as well-known. Hans Leo Hassler was born in Nuremberg and passed away in Frankfurt.

Biography

Hassler was born in Nuremberg and baptized on October 26, 1564. He learned music from his father, Isaak Hassler, who was an organist. In 1584, Hassler became one of the first German composers to travel to Italy for further musical training. He arrived in Venice during a time when the city’s music schools were very active. Venetian composers were known for creating bright and complex music in a style called polychoral, which later became popular beyond Italy. Hassler had already seen some of this music in Germany because printed copies of it were widely shared there. This was partly due to Leonhard Lechner, who worked with Orlandus Lassus in Munich.

While in Venice, Hassler became friends with Giovanni Gabrieli. Together, they wrote a wedding motet for Georg Gruber, a merchant from Nuremberg living in Venice, in 1600. They also studied with Andrea Gabrieli, Giovanni’s uncle. Under Andrea’s guidance, Hassler learned how to compose music and play the organ.

After Andrea Gabrieli died, Hassler returned to Germany in late 1585. He moved to Augsburg, where he worked as an organist for Octavian II Fugger, a local nobleman. During this time, Hassler was very creative and became well known as a composer and organist. However, his influence was limited because he was a Protestant in a region where most people were Roman Catholic.

Hassler was not only a composer but also an active organist and a consultant for organ builders. In 1596, Hassler and 53 other organists examined a new instrument with 59 stops at the Schlosskirche in Groningen. His knowledge of organs made him respected, and he was often asked to test new instruments. Using his experience, Hassler designed a clockwork organ, which was later sold to Emperor Rudolf II.

In 1602, Hassler returned to Nuremberg, where he became the Kapellmeister, or director of town music. He was also appointed Kaiserlicher Hofdiener in the court of Rudolf II. In 1604, he took time off to travel to Ulm, where he married Cordula Claus. Four years later, Hassler moved to Dresden, where he worked as the electoral chamber organist for Elector Christian II of Saxony and eventually became Kapellmeister. By this time, Hassler had already developed tuberculosis, a disease that caused his death in June 1612. After his death, Michael Praetorius and Heinrich Schütz were appointed to replace him.

Style

Hassler was one of the first people to share the new ideas from the Venetian style with places across the Alps. Through his songs, which were inspired by foreign madrigals and canzonets, and the Lustgarten, Hassler introduced to Germany the villanelle, canzonette, and dance songs created by Gastoldi and Orazio Vecchi. As the first great German composer to travel to Italy, Hassler’s work helped explain why Italian music became popular in Germany and why many German musicians studied in Italy. While composers like Lassus had worked in Germany for years, they represented the older Renaissance style of music, which was highly developed and complex. In Italy, new styles were forming that would later be called the Baroque era. Musicians like Hassler, and later Schütz, brought the Venetian ideas of stile concertato, polychoral music, and emotional expression into German culture, creating the first major Baroque development outside of Italy.

Although Hassler was Protestant, he wrote many masses and directed music for Catholic masses in Augsburg. While working for Octavian Fugger, Hassler dedicated his Cantiones sacrae and a book of masses for four to eight voices to him. Because of the needs of Catholic patrons and his own Protestant beliefs, Hassler’s music combined elements from both religious traditions, allowing his works to be used in both Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches. During his time in Augsburg, Hassler created only two works specifically for the Lutheran church. Under the commission of the free city of Nuremberg, he composed the Psalmen simpliciter in 1608 and dedicated it to the city. He also created the Psalmen und christliche Gesänge, mit vier Stimmen auf die Melodeien fugweis komponiert in 1607 and dedicated it to Elector Christian II of Saxony. Early in his career, Hassler’s music showed the influence of Lassus. Later, after studying in Italy, his music included polychoral techniques, changes in musical texture, and occasional use of chromatic notes. His later masses used light melodies mixed with the graceful, flowing style of Venetian dance songs, creating a charming sacred style that was more musical than deeply emotional. His secular music, including madrigals, canzonettes, and songs for voice, and ricercars, canzonas, introits, and toccatas for instruments, showed many of the advanced techniques used by Italian composers like the Gabrielis, but with a more controlled style and focus on musical beauty. His greatest success in blending German and Italian styles was in his lieder. In 1590, Hassler published his first work, a set of twenty-four four-part canzonettes. His most famous collection of lieder, the Lustgarten neuer teutscher Gesang, Balletti, Galliarden und Intraden, includes thirty-nine vocal and eleven instrumental pieces. In this work, Hassler published dance music for four, five, or six string or wind instruments with voice, without continuo. He also composed Mein G'müt ist mir verwirret, a five-part piece. Its melody was later used in the hymn O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden by Paul Gerhardt, which Johann Sebastian Bach used in his St Matthew Passion. Bach also used the melody in the aria Komm, du süße Todesstunde in Cantata 161 and as the final hymn in that same cantata.

Like many of his peers, Hassler aimed to mix the Italian style of music with the traditional German style. He did this by using thorough bass continuo and adding instrumental and solo ornamentation in the chorale motet. His motets show this mix of old and new styles by reflecting both the influence of Lassus and the two four-part chorus style used by the Gabrielis.

Hassler is considered one of the most important German composers in history. His use of new Italian techniques, combined with traditional German methods, made his music fresh without being overly emotional. His songs included both vocal and instrumental music that sometimes used continuo or made it optional. His sacred music introduced Italian polychoral structures that influenced many composers during the Baroque era.

Works

• Canzonette (published in Nuremberg, 1590)
• Cantiones sacrae (published in Augsburg, 1591), which includes the motets Dixit Maria and Verbum caro factum est
• Madrigals (published in Augsburg, 1596)
• Neüe teüsche Gesäng nach Art der welschen Madrigalien und Canzonetten (published in Augsburg, 1596)
• Masses (published in Nuremberg, 1599)
• Lustgarten Neuer Teutscher Gesäng (published in Nuremberg, 1601)
• Sacri concentus (published in Augsburg, 1601 and 1612)
• Psalmen und christliche Gesäng (published in Nuremberg, 1607)
• Psalmen simpliciter (published in Nuremberg, 1608)
• Kirchengesäng (published in Nuremberg, 1608)
• Venusgarten (published in Nuremberg, 1615) (instrumental music)
• Litaney teütsch (published in Nuremberg, 1619)
• Trois entrées, [1] listen to [2] from: Dances of the Renaissance, Harmonia Mundi: HMA195610 [3] by Clemencic Consort and René Clemencic.