Ludwig Senfl: Collected Works (New Senfl Edition) I. The Motets for 4 and 5 voices

Ludwig Senfl (ca. 14901543) is considered to be the leading composer of the generation between Henricus Isaac and Orlando di Lasso in the German speaking areas. Nevertheless, a great part of his uvre is still not accessible in a modern edition. Two attempts to publish a collected edition of Senfls works remained fragmentary. The problems working with these editions are obvious: they are based on a small section of the actually extant source material and they are edited according to varying editorial principles; but the main problem is that they present only a small part of Senfls uvre. The lack of basic information, an encompassing and profound investigation of the most prominent Renaissance composer of the German speaking regions has up to now scarcely been possible. A consequence of the fragmentary presentation in the editions is a lopsided perception of Senfl as a composer of songs. The New Senfl Edition is to adjust this image. Planned in four self-contained modules the collected edition will present a philologically reliable musical text, edited according to consistent editorial guidelines. It will be based on the current state of research and provide an encompassing description of the source situation, a musical score generated by transparent decisions and extensive context information, thereby remaining a flexible working tool. The aim of the first module is to edit Senfls motets for four and five voices, of which only a very small percentage is available in edition at the moment. During the applied project the 103 motets will be published in three volumes in the renowned series Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich.

Although the significance of the Renaissance composer Ludwig Senfl (1490-1543) was already recognized in the 19th century, his extensive uvre, which encompasses a broad range of vocal genres of the time, has so far been insufficiently studied. This is all the more astonishing as Senfl was active in two of the most important courts of the early 16th century: at the court of Emperor Maximilian I he launched his career as a singer and composer; and from 1523 he worked as court composer for Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria. At Wilhelms request, Senfl built the Munich Hofkapelle into a professional ensemble modeled, in terms of repertoire and organization, on the imperial chapel. He can thus be regarded as a leading figure between H. Isaac and O. di Lasso as well as a European composer of the first rank, standing alongside such renowned contemporaries as N. Gombert, C. Festa, and C. Janequin. The incomplete editions of his works presently available represent only a small fraction of Senfls overall compositional production and were created according to outmoded editorial guidelines. Measured according to the standards of contemporary research, the base of sources used for these earlier editions are also inadequate. The fragmentary state of this work has contributed to the fact that only portions of Senfls uvre have found their way into scholarship and practice, and that numerous, high-quality compositions have yet to be explored. The research project Ludwig Senfl: Complete Works (New Senfl Edition) I: The Motets for 4 and 5 Voices is the first of several modules in which the work of Senfl is systematically processed into a critical edition. The aim of this project is to provide a comprehensive overview of Senfls work based on up-to-date research. In the completed first module, work began on the repertoire for which the smallest proportion is available in a modern edition: the motets. After the development of reliable guidelines, modern editions of the altogether 86 compositions have been prepared in three volumes (volume 1: 26 motets à 4 voices; volume 2: 29 motets à 4 voices + appendix (motet fragment); volume 3: 31 motets à 5 voices). For this purpose, all known sources for each motet were consulted in the original or in the form of digital reproductions. While special significance is placed on the clear legibility of the musical notation in the edition, the critical reports provide comprehensive information on the texts of the motets (including German and English translations) and, if applicable, the cantus firmus used (including transcriptions of relevant plainchant melodies). Synoptic descriptions of the sources, an evaluation of these sources, detailed documentation of variant readings, as well as further contextual information on the work are likewise provided. The volumes are to be published in the series Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich.