Biography
The output of this German composer encompasses sacred genres including masses, motets, responsories, and hymns as well as secular categories such as lieder and purely instrumental music. His active period stretched from the closing phase of Dufay’s output through Josquin’s final years, covering roughly sixty years of production. After instruction in Warsaw as a member of the court chapel, he later served as Kappelmeister in Stuttgart for Duke Ulrich and Sabina of Bavaria, then for the Archbishop of Salzburg, before passing his final years in Vienna. Nothing composed before 1500 survives. Authenticated works comprise seven masses or mass settings, forty motets or motet cycles, twenty-eight hymns, thirty-eight songs, and assorted instrumental pieces. Pronounced stylistic contrasts throughout his music attest to his alertness to current developments and to his inventive command of fresh idioms. Pupils after his death reportedly found the sharp profile of his earliest pieces impenetrable because of their unrefined character. The masses themselves trace this evolution: the first rest on a cantus firmus, whereas the later Missa dominicalis employs imitation, saturated harmonies, and a bass line that anchors the harmony, with a genuinely melodic line appearing in its Credo. A still later work, Missa super 'Ave praeclara', displays both a recurring motif and textual illustration within the Credo. A 1542 anthology of his pieces illustrated the broad spectrum of music that Finck produced.