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Information about Tomas Luis De Victoria

Tomás Luis de Victoria (sometimes spelled 'da Vittoria') (1548 – August 20, 1611) was a Spanish composer of the late Renaissance. He was the most famous composer of the 16th century in Spain, and one of the most important composers of the Counter-Reformation, along with Palestrina, Orlando de Lassus, and William Byrd.

Overview

Victoria was born in Ávila, likely studying with Escobedo at Segovia early in his life. He is known to have gone to Rome around 1564, where he joined the monastery founded by St. Ignatius Loyola as part of the fight against Lutheranism. He may have studied with Palestrina around this time, though the evidence is circumstantial; certainly he was influenced by the Italian's style. In 1575 he was ordained as a priest, after a period of service at the monastery as maestro di cappella. He did not stay in Italy, however; in 1586 he returned to Spain, this time in the service of the Dowager Empress Maria, who was entering the convent of Descalzas Reales in Madrid. Victoria remained at the convent until the end of his life, performing several roles—priest, composer, director of the choir, and organist.

Victoria is the most significant composer of the Counter-Reformation in Spain, and one of the best-regarded composers of sacred music in the late Renaissance, a genre to which he devoted himself exclusively. His works have undergone a revival in the 20th century, with numerous recent recordings. Many commentators hear in his music a mystical intensity and direct emotional appeal, qualities considered by some to be lacking in the arguably more rhythmically and harmonically placid music of Palestrina.

Stylistically his music shuns the elaborate counterpoint of many of his contemporaries, preferring simple line and homophonic textures, yet seeking rhythmic variety and sometimes including intense and surprising contrasts. His melodic writing and use of dissonance is more free than that of Palestrina; occasionally he uses intervals which are prohibited in the strict application of 16th century counterpoint, such as ascending major sixths, or even occasional diminished fourths (for example, a melodic diminished fourth occurs in a passage representing grief in his motet Sancta Maria, succurre). Victoria sometimes uses dramatic word-painting, of a kind usually found only in madrigals. Some of his sacred music uses instruments (a practice which is not uncommon in Spanish sacred music of the 16th century), and he also wrote polychoral works for more than one spatially separated group of singers, in the style of the composers of the Venetian school who were working at St. Mark's in Venice.

Published in 1605 under the title Officium Defunctorum, sex vocibus, in obitu et obsequiis sacrae imperatricis, one of his finest, most beautiful, and most refined works is the great Requiem Mass he wrote in 1603 for the funeral of Empress Maria, who had been his employer since 1586, and who was the sister of Philip II and wife of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor. Also notable is the serene emotion of every one of the 37 pieces that form his Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae of 1585, a collection of motets and lamentations linked to the Holy Week Catholic celebrations.

Recordings

References and further reading

  • Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0393095304
  • The Concise Edition of Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 8th ed. Revised by Nicolas Slonimsky. New York, Schirmer Books, 1993. ISBN 002872416X

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"Further Beyond"
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Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance, approximately 1400 to 1600. Defining the beginning of the era is difficult, given the lack of abrupt shifts in musical thinking during the 15th century.
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As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 through 1600.

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The Counter-Reformation (also Catholic Reformation[1][1] or Catholic Revival[1]) denotes the period of Catholic revival from the pontificate of Pope Pius IV in 1560 to the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648.
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Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (between 3 February 1525 and 2 February 1526[1] - 2 February, 1594) was an Italian composer of the Renaissance. He was the most famous sixteenth-century representative of the Roman School of musical composition.
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Orlande de Lassus (also Orlandus Lassus, Orlando di Lasso, Roland de Lassus, or Roland Delattre) (1532 (possibly 1530) – June 14, 1594) was a Franco-Flemish composer of late Renaissance music.
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William Byrd (c. 1540 – 4 July 1623) was an English composer of the Renaissance. He lived until well into the seventeenth century without writing music in the new Baroque fashion, but his keyboard works are said to have marked the beginning of the Baroque organ and
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Ávila
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Ávila with its famous city walls, as seen from a distance

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Bartolomé de Escobedo (c. 1500 – August 11, 1563) was a Spanish composer of the Renaissance. He was born in Zamora, studied at Salamanca where he was a singer, and in 1536 joined the papal choir in Rome, where he remained off-and-on until 1554.
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Segovia

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Location of Segovia in Spain
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Comune di Roma

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Saint Ignatius of Loyola, also known as Ignacio (Íñigo) López de Loyola (December 24, 1491 – July 31 1556), was the principal founder and first Superior General of the Society of Jesus, a religious order of the Catholic Church professing direct service to the Pope in
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Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestant Christianity that identifies with the teachings of the sixteenth-century German reformer Martin Luther. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Church launched the Protestant Reformation and, though it was not
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Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (between 3 February 1525 and 2 February 1526[1] - 2 February, 1594) was an Italian composer of the Renaissance. He was the most famous sixteenth-century representative of the Roman School of musical composition.
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Maria of Spain (Madrid, June 21, 1528 - Villa Monte, February 26, 1603) was the first daughter of Charles V and Isabella of Portugal. She was also the wife of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor.
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Descalzas Reales is a monastery situated in Madrid, Spain.

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El Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, literally the Monastery of Barefoot Royals, resides in the former palace of Carlos I and Isabel of Portugal.
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Madrid
Puerta de Alcalá at night with El Retiro gardens in the background.

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Motto: De Madrid al Cielo
(Spanish for "From Madrid to Heaven")
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The Counter-Reformation (also Catholic Reformation[1][1] or Catholic Revival[1]) denotes the period of Catholic revival from the pontificate of Pope Pius IV in 1560 to the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648.
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twentieth century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1901 and ended on December 31, 2000, according to the Gregorian calendar. Some historians consider the era from about 1914 to 1991 to be the Short Twentieth Century.
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In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm, and interdependent in harmony. It has most commonly been identified in Western music, developing strongly in the Renaissance, and also dominant in much of the common
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homophony (IPA [ho'mɒfəni], from Greek "homófonos", where ομοιο = the same, and φωνή = a sound, tone) is a texture in which two or more parts move together in harmony, the
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In music, a consonance (Latin consonare, "sounding together") is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance, which is considered unstable.
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In music theory, the term interval describes the difference in pitch between two notes. Although frequently used in connection with intervals, the term "distance" does not adequately describe the physics and subjective effects of two interacting frequencies.
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As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 through 1600.

See also: 16th century in literature

Events

1500s

  • 1500s: Mississippian culture disappears.

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