Tomás Luis de Victoria

The dominating figure of sixteenth century Spanish music, Tomás Luis de Victoria was created in Avila. He was delivered to Rome to review, possibly for a while under Palestrina through the latter’s years in the Roman Seminary. In 1571 he been successful Palestrina there as choirmaster, a post he also consequently occupied in the Jesuit Order’s German University. Later on he became energetic like a priest, operating at St. Girolamo della Carit? . Pursuing his go back to Spain in 1585, Victoria offered the Empress Maria and her girl as instructor, organist, and choirmaster until his loss of life in 1611. By enough time Victoria found its way to Rome, the traditional ecclesiastical establishment as well as the Council of Trent got guaranteed that any musical hint from the “lascivious or the impure” was mainly banished (Palestrina was actually shifted to dismiss his publication of secular madrigals like a vibrant peccadillo). Hence, it is unsurprising to discover that Victoria’s result consists exclusively of spiritual music that eschews also the usage of secular cantus firmus, and that presents the formal excellence as well as the well-smoothed vocal composing from the Palestrina design. What is astonishing is normally that despite his Roman schooling and many years of provider in the town, Victoria so highly maintained his Spanish root base. A few of his finest functions had been constructed after his come back home, and several of them include features that appear to epitomize the deeply mystical strategy of a lot Spanish Renaissance music. Evaluation with Palestrina reveals a larger focus on chromatic color and usage of powerful contrast; Victoria’s stop harmonies and multiple choirs anticipate the Baroque. His response to phrases is normally acute and extremely personal, a quality particularly suitable for the comparatively powerful and plastic type of the motet also to various other texts which enable complete rein to subjective treatment. Of Victoria’s 44 motets, the first four-part O quam gloriosum can probably be allowed a particular mention, because it is normally pervaded with a fresh vigor and joyous radiance that provides lie towards the understandable impression that Spanish Renaissance composers had been preoccupied with somber spiritual subjects. His broadly performed Xmas motet, O magnum mysterium, exudes a tranquil sense of question. Victoria’s fame like a motet composer offers tended to overshadow his people, however at their finest, as with the beautiful Missa Ave maris stella, they aren’t inferior compared to those of Palestrina. To find Victoria at his biggest, nevertheless, one must eventually go back to the darker part, and specifically to both functions by which he’s most widely known, the Tenebrae Responsories (1st released in 1585) as well as the Requiem of 1605, a function of timeless serenity. The previous can be a establishing of 18 items that abide by the traditional type of the responsory, using its alternation of verse and refrain. The task requires us through the Enthusiasm tale in music that depends not really much for the drama from the occasions themselves as on the quite extraordinarily immediate and serious response to the written text, a response regularly achieved by way of the greatest simpleness, or, perhaps even more accurately, apparent simpleness.