“Tædet Animam Meam”. “Requiem Aeternam”. “Officium Defunctorum”. Composed By: Tomás Luis De Victoria (1548 - 1611). Composed For The Funeral Of The Mother Of Two Emperors.

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“Tædet Animam Meam” are the opening words

in Chapter 10 of The Book of Job.

Job laments his afflictions and begs God

to be delivered from them.

“Tædet Animam Meam”

and “Requiem Aeternam”.

Tomás Luis De Victoria

(1548 - 1611).

Available on YouTube at

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“Tædet Animam Meam”.

Chapter 10 of The Book of Job.

Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition.

Text from: BIBLE GATEWAY

My Soul is weary of my life, I will let go my speech

against myself, I will speak in the bitterness of my Soul.

I will say to God: Do not condemn me:

tell me why Thou judgest me so.

Doth it seem good to Thee that thou shouldst calumniate me, and oppress me, the work of Thy own hands,

and help the counsel of the wicked ?

Hast Thou eyes of flesh: or, shalt Thou see as man seeth ?

Are Thy days as the days of man,

and are Thy years as the times of men:

That Thou shouldst inquire after my iniquity,

and search after my sin ?

And shouldst know that I have done no wicked thing,

whereas there is no man that can deliver out of Thy hand.

Thy hands have made me, and fashioned me 

wholly round about, and dost Thou thus cast me down headlong on a sudden ?

Remember, I beseech Thee, that Thou hast made me as the clay, and Thou wilt bring me into dust again.

Hast Thou not milked me as milk, and curdled me like cheese ?

Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh:

Thou hast put me together with bones and sinews:

Thou hast granted me life and mercy,

and Thy visitation hath preserved my Spirit.

Although Thou conceal these things in Thy heart,

yet I know that Thou rememberest all things.

If I have sinned and Thou hast spared me for an hour:

why dost Thou not suffer me to be clean from my iniquity ?

And if I be wicked, woe unto me: and if just, I shall not

lift up my head, being filled with affliction and misery.

And for pride, Thou wilt take me as a lioness, 

and returning Thou tormentest me wonderfully.

Thou renewest Thy witnesses against me, and 

multipliest Thy wrath upon me, and pains war against me.

Why didst Thou bring me forth out of the womb: 

O, that I had been consumed that eye might not see me !

I should have been as if I had not been,

carried from the womb to the grave.

Shall not the fewness of my days be ended shortly ?

suffer me, therefore, that I may lament my sorrow a little:

Before I go, and return no more, to a land that is 

dark and covered with the mist of death:

A land of misery and darkness, where the shadow of death,

and no order, but everlasting horror dwelleth.

“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 twenty-six minutes of the forty-two minute composition, and the work is sometimes referred to as “Victoria’s Requiem”.

“Officium Defunctorum” was composed for the funeral of The Dowager Empress Maria, sister of King Philip II of Spain, daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, wife of Holy Roman Emperor 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 1603 and 23 April 1603. 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).

“Officium Defunctorum” is scored for Six-Part SSATTB Chorus. It includes an entire Office of The Dead: In addition to a Requiem Mass, Victoria sets an Extra-Liturgical Funeral Motet, a Lesson that belongs to Matins (scored for only SATB and not always included in concert performances), and the Ceremony of Absolution, which follows The Mass.

Polyphonic sections are separated by unaccompanied Chant Incipits that Victoria printed himself. The Soprano II usually carries the “cantus firmus”, though “it very often disappears into the surrounding part-writing, since the Chant does not move as slowly as most “cantus firmus” parts and the polyphony does not generally move very fast”.

The sections of the Work are as follows:

“Tædet Animam Meam”.

Second Lesson of Matins (Job 10:1-7);

“Missa Pro Defunctis”

(Mass for The Dead).

With The Council of Trent, The Liturgy of The Requiem Mass was Standardised.

Victoria sets all of The Requiem Mass sections, except the:

Dies Irae (Sequence);

Introit;

Kyrie;

Gradual;

Offertory;

Sanctus;

Agnus Dei;

Communion;

“Versa Est In Luctum Cithara Mea”

(Funeral Motet).

The Absolution:

Responsory;

“Libera Me”.

“Kyrie”.

“Versa Est In Luctum Cithara Mea”

(Funeral Motet).

Composed by: Alonso Lobo

(1555 - 1617).

Available on YouTube at

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