SENFL, LUDWIG

born c. 1490, Zrich or Basel, Switz. died c. 1556, Munich, Bavaria Swiss composer, considered the most important German-speaking master of his time. A pupil of Heinrich Isaac, Senfl rapidly mastered the Franco-Flemish style and became chamber composer to the Holy Roman emperor Maximilian I. About 1520 he moved to Augsburg, where he completed Isaac's Choralis Constantinus and edited the Liber selectarum cantionum (1520), one of the earliest examples of German printed music. From 1523 he worked in Munich. Senfl's seven masses employ parody (reworking of a preexistent part-song) and cantus firmus; one mass combines two preexisting melodies simultaneously. He published about 150 German lieder (1534, 1544).