Taken as a whole, the German lieder of Ludwig Senfl show the composer's facility across the range of compositional options available to him. Adjacent pieces in the same collection might cover the gamut from simple chordal settings of a popular tenor melody to polyphonic lieder bursting with counterpoint and imitation. Senfl may employ canons, or a tenor cantus firmus, and may embed clever acrostics within his texts. He could even mingle these techniques in the same lied. He also seems to delight in recasting his material according to different compositional challenges, as in his large group of settings of Ich stund an einem Morgen. Even a tune such as the simple and strophic love song Ach Elslein, liebes Elselein mein can elicit from him a variety of musical incarnations. Senfl set the simple German piece at least three times (two appear adjacent in a Basel manuscript). In one four-voiced lied, Senfl treats the melody quite simply in the uppermost voice and creates a straightforward chordal setting of its three verses (changing the harmonies slightly when the first phrase repeats). Yet immediately, he gives a different cast to the same naïve melody in a second setting. Again, the principal Elslein melody is in the upper voice. But in the second setting, Senfl juxtaposes a completely different melody beneath it in the tenor voice—Es taget vor dem Walde—expertly weaving the second hunting song into the harmonic fabric of the plaintive love-ditty. Finally, a six-voiced expansion of the same piece exists, adding a third text (Wann ich des Morgens) and new contrapuntal voices to the mixture.

© All Music Guide