In the dynamic culture of Renaissance Florence, Heinrich Isaac emerged as one of the most versatile and cosmopolitan composers of his age. Though Flemish by birth, he used Northern counterpoint, facile Italian improvisatory styles, and fashionable French chansons, all with equal fluency. En route to Italy, he spent some time in the German-speaking lands, which would eventually be his career home with the chapel of the Holy Roman Emperor. His name is thus also associated with the early development of the quintessentially Germanic genre of the time, the tenorlied. Ich stund an einem Morgen concisely epitomizes the type. Its stophic folk song text (in seven verses) relates a pastoral scene at morning, with a young maiden lamenting the absence and death of her lover.

The principal melody of the song lies in the tenor voice of Isaac's setting; it is in the traditional barform of the German minnesänger (AABA). The same text and melody would be twice set later by Ludwig Senfl, but neither of his settings shows quite the vivacity of Isaac's. Isaac treats the opening melody, each time it occurs, to imitation in all four voices, enlivened by dotted rhythms and later by sprightly running notes in the bass, answered by a similar descent in the upper voice before each cadence. In contrast, the middle section, though it retains the prevailing duple meter of the outer phrases, implies a triple beat syncopation. In Isaac's time, the song could have been performed by a soloist, with instrumental accompaniment for the outer voices; a printed series of popular German partbooks could also imply performance by an amateur vocal ensemble.

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