Missa Pro Defunctis (1605) (Requiem). Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548 - 1611).

Portrait of Tomás Luis de Victoria

(1548 - 1611)

Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20090323042600/http://

www.upv.es/coro/victoria/english.html.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Tomás Luis de Victoria, sometimes Italianised as "da Vittoria" (1548 – 1611), was the most famous composer of the 16th-Century in Spain, and one of the most important composers of the Counter-Reformation, along with Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Orlando di Lasso (Lassus). Victoria was not only a composer, but also an accomplished organist and singer, as well as a Catholic Priest. However, he preferred the life of a composer to that of a performer. He is sometimes known as the "Spanish Palestrina", because he may have been taught by Palestrina.

Officium Defunctorum is a musical setting of the Office of the Dead, composed by the Spanish Renaissance composer, Tomás Luis de Victoria, in 1603. It includes settings of the movements of the Requiem Mass, accounting for about 26 minutes of the 42 minute composition, and the work is sometimes referred to as Victoria's Requiem.

English: Contemporary printing of the sheet music for 

Tomás Luis de Victoria's Officium Defunctorum.

Français: Une édition de la partition de 

l'Officium Defunctorum de Tomás Luis de Victoria.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Officium Defunctorum was composed for the funeral of the Dowager Empress Maria, sister of

Philip II of Spain, daughter of Charles V, wife of Maximilian II and mother of two Emperors;

it was dedicated to Princess Margaret for “the obsequies of your most revered mother”.

The Empress Maria died on 26 February 1603 and the great obsequies were performed on

22 April and 23 April. Victoria was employed as Personal Chaplain to the Empress Maria

from 1586 to the time of her death.

Victoria published eleven volumes of his music during his lifetime, representing the majority 

of his compositional output. Officium Defunctorum, the only work to be published by itself, 

was the eleventh volume and the last work that Victoria published. The date of publication, 

1605, is often included with the title to differentiate the Officium Defunctorum from 

Victoria's other setting of the Requiem Mass (in 1583, Victoria composed and 

published a book of Masses (Reprinted in 1592) including a 

Missa Pro Defunctis for four-part choir).

Missa Pro Defunctis (1605) (Requiem)

by

Tomás Luis de Victoria

(1548 - 1611).

Available on YouTube

at

http://youtu.be/M1MaAZ086Hc.