Victoria: Missa De Beata Maria Virgine & Missa Surge propera

Featuring

Alexander Hopkins
Martin Baker
Nicholas Keay
William Gaunt
Westminster Cathedral Choir
Tomás Luis de Victoria

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

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Composer's Artistic Vision

Palestrina, despite primarily composing sacred music, wrote several books of secular and spiritual madrigals, and dedicated his fourth book of motets entirely to settings of poetry from the Song of Songs.

Compositional Technique

Victoria's Missa De Beata Maria Virgine is a paraphrase Mass based on a 12th-century Gregorian plainchant Mass and Credo I, making extensive use of melodic material from the plainchant.

Composer Biography

Tomás Luis de Victoria, the greatest composer of Spain's 16th-century 'golden age' of polyphonic music, spent twenty years in Rome, where he succeeded Palestrina as maestro di cappella in 1571.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Victoria's musical output was relatively small compared to other major Renaissance composers like Palestrina and Lassus, but he adopted a highly critical attitude to what he wrote, constantly revising his works.

Compositional Technique

Victoria's Missa Surge propera is a parody Mass, based on a motet of the same title by Palestrina, which uses text from the Song of Songs.

Composer Biography

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, a prominent Renaissance composer, was dismissed from the Pope's official chapel in 1555 because he was married, as the new Pope insisted on celibacy for its members.

Compositional Technique

Victoria's music, while sharing Palestrina's liking for smooth melodic lines, uses more accidentals and subtle harmonic coloration, giving it a passionate intensity.