HASSLER, HANS LEO

born Oct. 26, 1564, Nrnberg died June 8, 1612, Frankfurt am Main outstanding German composer. Hassler studied with his father, the organist Isaak Hassler (d. 1591). After mastering the imitative techniques of Orlando di Lasso and the fashionable polychoral style of the Venetians, he traveled to Venice in 1584 to study with Andrea Gabrieli. The light, elegant secular music of Orazio Vecchi, Baldassare Donato, and G.G. Gastoldi and the keyboard works of the Venetian school soon attracted him. In 1585 he returned to Germany as organist to the Fugger banking family of Augsburg. In 1600 he was appointed director of music for Augsburg city and in 1601 for Nrnberg. In 1608 he became organist to the elector of Saxony. Hassler's style is a fusion of German counterpoint and Italian form. His Madrigali (1596), though avoiding the harmonic experiments of the 16th-century madrigalists such as Luca Marenzio, are considered to be among the finest of their time. His instrumental compositions and his church musicProtestant and Roman Catholicwere widely imitated. His German songs owe much to the homophonic dance rhythms of Gastoldi; the best-known collection was the Lustgarten (1601; Pleasure Ground), which contains the charming Mein Gemt ist mir verwirret. This tune reappears in J.S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion under the title O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden.