Senfl, Ludwig (c. 1486–c. 1542)

Swiss composer. He made imaginative arrangements of traditional German melodies, ranging from chordal harmonization to canons, and is regarded as the most important German-speaking composer of motets and songs during the Reformation.

He studied under Henricus Isaac in Vienna and sang 1496–1513 in the Hofkapelle of Maximilian I in Vienna, Augsburg, and Constance. He worked with Isaac in copying a large amount of music which was later published as part of Isaac's Choralis constantinus (1550–55), a task Ludwig Senfl completed around 1520. In 1513 he succeeded Isaac as kapellmeister to Emperor Maximilian I, holding the post until the emperor's death in 1519. In 1520 he went to Augsburg and in 1523 to Munich, where he settled as first musician at the ducal court of Wilhelm of Bavaria. In 1530 he was in correspondence with Martin Luther.

Works Church and secular music seven Masses, Magnificats, motets, and other church music; odes by Horace for voices; about 250 German songs.