Bálint Bakfark (c. 1507–1576) was a Hungarian composer of Transylvanian Saxon origin, born in Brassó, Transylvania (now Brașov, Romania). Orphaned, he was raised by the Greff family and educated at John Zápolya’s court in Buda, where he remained until 1540. In the 1540s he traveled to Paris, then in 1549 left for Jagiellon Poland, where he was employed as court lutenist by Sigismund II Augustus, remaining until he fell from royal favor and fled in 1566. He then lived in Vienna and Transylvania before settling in Padua, Italy, in 1571, where he died during the 1576 plague.

Bakfark’s surviving works include ten fantasies, seven madrigals, eight chansons, and fourteen motets, all written as polyphonic arrangements for solo lute. Very little of what he composed was printed, reportedly because it was too difficult for others to play. He also transcribed vocal motets by composers including Josquin des Prez, Clemens non Papa, Nicolas Gombert, and Orlando di Lasso into lute arrangements. He was, in his time, an “enormously influential” lutenist, “renowned as a virtuoso” on the instrument.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A1lint_Bakfark
• https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q788956