Lechner, Leonhard

1550-1604

Born in the Etschthal, in the Austrian Tyrol, near Glarus, Switzerland. He was a chorister in the Bavarian Court Chapel at Munich under the famous Orlandus Lassus. He was town-musician at Nuremberg from 1578 to 1584, later chapelmaster to the Duke of Wurtemberg. His first works were many motets and German songs in the madrigal style. In 1579 he assisted Lassus in arranging and publishing, in a revised and enlarged edition, his two books of motets of 1568. In 1581 Lechner published a book of five previously unpublished masses by Lassus, and two years later a collection from composers connected at one time or another with the Bavarian Chapel. He also composed much church-music; masses; canticles; and psalms; also several collections of songs for three to five voices. His last work was the composition of a wedding motet, Laudate Dominum, for fifteen voices, for the marriage of the Elector Johann Georg I. of Saxony.