GERMAN polyphony in the decades before 1520 was dependent on styles and devices from the Dufay–Binchois, Busnois– Ockeghem, and Josquin generations. Its national identity was expressed most notably in the instrumentalists who had been prized throughout Europe during the fifteenth century and in the polyphonic lied, especially those by Paulus Hofhaimer, Heinrich Finck, and Henricus Isaac. The presence of the eminent Netherlander Isaac in this list is symptomatic of strong external influences on German music that continued into the seventeenth century. The tension between distinctive native elements and the eager absorption of external features remained typical of German music well past 1600. Key social and political events that shaped the development of German music between 1520 and 1560 were the Lutheran Reformation, the death of Maximilian i in 1519, and the subsequent dissolution of the Imperial Chapel in 1521. Monophonic songs continued to be written in sixteenth-century Germany, notably the Meistersang, but these repertories had little influence on polyphonic music and remained isolated.

The polyphonic lied

The earliest polyphonic lieder, mostly for three or occasionally two voices, are transmitted in the Lochamer, Schedelsche, and Glogauer Liederbucher (c.1452– 60, 1460s, and c.1480 respectively). In them the leading melody, often pre-existing, is in the tenor voice, which however can be the highest of the three. Textures varied among simple note-against-note settings and duets for discant and tenor with a filling contratenor. The latter procedure resembles the contemporary chanson, which exerted an influence on the lied, but a native influence is also apparent in the textures that appear to be derived from the improvisatory practice of German instrumentalists, notably the chains of parallel tenths moving against the tenor's cantus firmus. Early in the sixteenth century the published lied collections of Erhard Oeglin (Augsburg, RISM B/I/1 15121), Peter Schöffer (Mainz, 15132), and Arnt von Aich (Cologne, 15195) show a new stage of development in which fourvoice texture is the norm, with the tenor melody now regularly in the tenor register as cantus firmus, surrounded by discantus, altus, and bassus, moving in shorter rhythmic values. In these publications usually only the tenor was texted ; this may have been the publisher's as much as the composer's choice, but it does reflect the abstractly instrumental character of most of the music. Expression of the text is not a concern.