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“I […] will use all my art for his Majesty’s chapel”

David Burn

The 1490s saw the most dramatic turn-about conceivable in the Florentine musical scene: Lorenzo il Magnifico’s many years of stable patronage ended with his death in 1492, and by 1494 the Dominican friar Girolamo Savanarola had instituted a religious law under which elaborate liturgical music had no place.[14] Isaac not only lost his job as a singer at the Baptistry of San Giovanni, but found himself in an environment in which his very craft as a producer of musical art-works was viewed with suspicion. It was clear that he would have to leave Florence until a more tolerant regime returned.

A composer with Isaac’s credentials would not remain unemployed for long. In 1496 he took up a position at the Imperial court of Maximilian I, and left Florence for Vienna. With Isaac’s appointment, Maximilian hoped to elevate his court’s musical standards to a level unrivalled anywhere in Europe. To achieve this, Maximilian took Isaac into his service not as a singer, but as componist—court composer—and, in so doing, Isaac became the first musician known to have been employed exclusively to produce musical works.[15] Maximilian promised Isaac a reasonable salary and a pension for his wife, should she outlive him, and in return, Isaac promised to “use all his art” for Maximilian’s chapel, and to serve as a “true composer” (» Abb. Isaac’s contract).[16]

 

 

[14] Macey 1998.

[15] Wegman 1996, esp. 461–469; Wegman 2011.

[16] Full document quoted in Staehelin 1977, vol. 2, 46 f.