The focus of this recording is on motets by the Innsbruck court organist Georg Piscator (Fischer), a great unknown of the glorious Innsbruck music history of the 17th century. A single complete copy of his collection Quadriga musica published by Johann Gach in Innsbruck in 1632 has been preserved in the Proske Library in Regensburg, otherwise only a single part book in the Bavarian State Library in Munich.
Piscator was sent to Venice by his employer, Archduke Leopold V of Austria-Tyrol, to learn the most current Italian style and bring it to Innsbruck. Piscator represents this style in his motets, whereby an orientation to the madrigal can be detected in his work; the Innsbruck court organist knows how to find memorable head motifs and to provide maximum variety by skillfully combining the voices and creating dramatically effective arcs of tension. The vocal virtuosity comes to the fore especially in the solo motets.
The motets of the Quadriga musica are real discoveries, at the same time prime examples of the Italian-influenced musica sacra at the decidedly Italophile court of Leopold V and Claudia de' Medici, who took over the regency in place of their minor son Ferdinand Karl after the death of her husband. Leopold died as early as 1632, the year Piscator's Quadriga musica was published. Piscator was appointed court organist in Munich three years later and then went to Vienna, where he served as organist and regens chori at the Schottenkloster. He died there in 1656. © Musik Museum