At seventeen, Victoria was sent to Rome to study at the Jesuits' Collegium Germanicum, patronized by Philip II, the King of Spain, and the Church.
Compositional Technique
The structure of the Responsory texts and music is always ABCB, with an additional repeat in the third of each group, making it ABCBAB.
Compositional Technique
The C section of the Responsories is always for fewer voices, typically three parts instead of four, except for the very first where it is for just two voices.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Victoria's Holy Week Office and his great Office of the Dead are recognized as supreme works of the last phase of Renaissance polyphony, known for their intensity and concentrated anguish.
Composer Biography
Tomás Luis de Victoria was born in 1548 in Ávila, Spain, the birthplace of Saint Teresa, and began his musical training as a chorister at Ávila Cathedral.
Composition History
Tomás Luis de Victoria's collection of polyphonic music for Holy Week, published in Rome in 1585, is one of the most complete cycles by a single composer.
Historical Context
The original context of Tenebrae, a somber celebration of Matins, involved gradually extinguishing fifteen candles until the last one was hidden.
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De Victoria - Tenebrae Responsories
Orfeo Vecchi, Six-voice Motets, Motectorum sex vocibus liber tertius (Milan 1598)
