Salmi con una voce e doi violini, ed motteti con, e senza violini (Salzburg, 1654) by Andreas Hofer

Andreas Hofer (1629–1684) published his Salmi con una voce e doi Violini, e Motetti con e senza violini in Salzburg in 1654, the year he was appointed vice kapellmeister by newly-elected Prince-Archbishop Guidobald von Thun (r. 1654–1668). Hofer dedicated his Salmi to his new boss, and the volume is the sole surviving print of sacred music dedicated to this particular prince-archbishop. While the majority of the work preserved in this print is that of Hofer, three of the psalm settings are also associated with other musicians in the collection’s organ partbook. While the role played in the compositional process by these other musicians is unclear, this collection also preserves the work of two other musicians, Marzello Ißlinger and Ludovico Barta, about whom next to nothing remains known. The print opens with settings of seven psalms, all fixtures of the Divine Office service of Vespers. Hofer sets these texts each for various solo voices (two each for soprano, alto, and bass, and one for tenor) accompanied by two violins. The second half of the print includes motets for various voicings, settings of texts that are freely formed but occasionally interpolate texts drawn from both the New and Old Testament sections of the Bible. While the first half of the print provides evidence of Hofer’s distinct approach to setting psalms, a standard liturgical component, for virtuosic solo voices, the second half of the publication discloses his creative compilation of various sacred texts in compositions that celebrate devotional themes that we can assume were of particular importance in Salzburg around the middle of the seventeenth century.