 Walter wrote his motets and "lieder," often of high quality, in two distinct styles.For the first style he employed a polyphonic manner derived from the Franco-Flemish school, in particular showing the influence of Josquin des Prez and Heinrich Isaac.In the tenor voice of these compositions was a "cantus firmus" sounding as an unbroken succession of sustained notes or as a melody fragmented into short sections separated by rests.