Sunday, 12.10.2025 | 6:00 PM
34. Chor- und Orgeltage
Pfarrkirche St. Karl Hohenems
Heinrich Isaac (1450–1517) was one of the most significant composers in the European musical world around 1500. Highly esteemed by his contemporaries and celebrated by later generations of musicians as one of the great masters, Isaac’s music resonated on the stages of power and opened a path for him into the very heart of the cultural and political spheres of influence – Italy and the Holy Roman Empire.
Heinrich Isaac (1450–1517)
Motets from the Choralis Constantinus for the great feasts of Easter, Pentecost, and the Virgin Mary
Hans Buchner (1483–1537)
Organ versets in alternatim
Alessandro Spider
Saxophone improvisation
Choralis Constantinus
Among Isaac’s works, one project stands out as unique in scope: the Choralis Constantinus. This monumental collection comprises 375 motets for every Sunday and the various feasts of the liturgical year, and in both scale and function it is comparable to Bach’s cantatas. The starting point for this ambitious compositional undertaking was a commission from the cathedral chapter in Constance.
In 1507, Isaac travelled as composer of the imperial chapel in the retinue of Emperor Maximilian I to the Imperial Diet in the city on Lake Constance. During his stay, the quality of his music evidently left such a deep impression that the canons of Constance commissioned a collection of new motets in summis festivitatibus – for all the great feasts of the liturgical year. These works form the very heart of the Choralis Constantinus.
Alternating with Isaac’s music are organ versets by Hans Buchner, organist of Constance Cathedral. It is likely that Buchner and Isaac collaborated regularly, and that their works were performed in liturgy in alternation with monophonic Gregorian chant.
As a counterpoint to these historical sonorities, internationally acclaimed saxophonist Alessandro Spider contributes interwoven improvisations, building musical bridges from the Renaissance to the present day.