Hans Leo Hassler

Hans Leo Hassler was a German Protestant composer and organist whose career linked the musical worlds of late Renaissance Germany and Venice. Born in Nuremberg in 1564 into a musical family, he first learned from his father, Isaak Hassler. In 1584 he went to Venice, where he studied with Andrea Gabrieli at St. Mark's and absorbed Italian madrigalian and polychoral techniques. After returning north, he entered the service of Octavianus Secundus Fugger in Augsburg in 1586 and quickly established a reputation as a composer and keyboard musician.

Hassler wrote both sacred and secular music. His publications included Cantiones sacrae (1591), madrigals and German songs, masses, Sacri Concentus (1601), and later Protestant chorale settings. His 1601 collection Lustgarten neuer teutscher Gesäng contained the secular song "Mein G'müth ist mir verwirret." Its melody was adapted to sacred use in 1613 with the hymn "Herzlich tut mich verlangen" and in 1656 was paired with Paul Gerhardt's "O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden." That melody later became widely known in English as PASSION CHORALE or HERZLICH TUT MICH VERLANGEN.

Hassler also held musical responsibilities in Nuremberg and served in circles connected with Emperor Rudolf II and the Saxon court. His 1607 and 1608 publications of Protestant psalm and chorale settings show his importance beyond the secular repertory for which he was already admired. He died in Frankfurt am Main in 1612. Johann Sebastian Bach later harmonized and repeatedly used the Passion Chorale melody, especially in the St. Matthew Passion, but Bach did not compose the underlying tune.