Leonhard Kleber

Leonhard Kleber was a German organist, and probably composer, of the Renaissance.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article on Leonhard Kleber.

From the period sources

Leonhard Kleber, born in Goppingen, Württemberg, and later organist at Pforzheim in Baden, is primarily remembered for his significant contribution as a compiler. He died in 1556. Between 1520 and 1524, Kleber assembled a substantial manuscript collection of organ and clavier music, written in old tablature notation, which is now preserved in the Royal Library, Berlin, according to Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1906). This collection comprises 116 pieces, some attributed to specific composers, and is divided into two parts: one for clavier in three-part harmony, and another requiring the use of pedals. It includes preludes in various keys, fantasias, and organ arrangements of both sacred and secular songs. Grove’s (1906) quotes Ritter, who states that “The whole collection shows the South German organ-playing in a very advantageous light; it extends and completes the work begun by Schlick, on whose principles it is based.”

Among the pieces within Kleber’s collection are organ works by Paulus Hofhaimer, copied by Kleber around 1515, as noted in A Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (1900). Another entry in the collection, dated 1516, is a three-part organ piece by Ottomar Luscinius, a pupil of Hofhaimer, who was organist at Strasburg and later a canon of St. Stephen’s, Vienna, before Reformation troubles forced him to leave Strasburg in 1523, as detailed in Grove’s (1906). Kleber’s compilation thus provides a valuable window into the organ repertoire and performance practices of early 16th-century South Germany.