Lechner, Leonhardt 01/01/1553 - 09/09/1606

Leonhard Lechner (c. 1553-1606) was a German composer and music editor who worked with Orlando de Lassus. He was a singer in the Munich Hofkapelle under Lassus (probably 1564-8) and in the Landshut Hofkapelle before 1570. After ten years as a schoolmaster in Nuremberg he became Kapellmeister at Hechingen, a Catholic court, in 1584. His Lutheranism soon caused problems, and in 1585 he fled to Tübingen and then to Stuttgart, where he sang in the Hofkapelle. He became Hofkapellmeister in 1594; during his tenure standards greatly improved.



The leading German composer of choral music in the later 16th century, he issued masses (1584), Magnificats (1578), psalms (1587) and motets (1575, 1581), as well as eight books of lieder (1576- c. 1606) and occasional works. His four-part Passion (1593) brought the German motet Passion to its peak; his other sacred works were influenced by Lassus and Italian composers. His lieder (German villanellas, Gesellschaftslieder, song motets etc) are more individual; and he was the first to set a complete cycle of German poems, "Deutsche Sprüche vom Leben und Tod".