Composer of the Week: Victoria

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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

Composer of the Week - Brand

An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611): Death of the Empress

Death of the Empress

Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611)

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611), Death of the Empress

Donald Macleod explores Victoria’s final years in Spain employed by Empress Maria.

Donald Macleod delves into Victoria’s last publication, his Requiem for the death of the Dowager Empress Maria.

Donald Macleod explores Victoria’s last published music, his Requiem, written for the death of the Dowager Empress Maria

Tomás Luis de Victoria has become the most famed Spanish composer of the Renaissance, and ranks alongside Palestrina and Lassus as one of the greatest composers of the 16th century. He was a singer, organist, scholar, teacher, and a priest, but it was in composition that he made his most significant impact. His motets, Offices for the Dead and music for Holy Week are admired for their great beauty and intensity and his musical talent thrust him into the orbit of Spain’s royal family and the most senior clerics in Rome.  His devotion to God sat at the heart of his creative life; and he wrote, “there is not a single thing as useful as music, which, reaching our hearts soft but deeply, provides a clear benefit not only for our soul but also for our body.”

When the Dowager Empress Maria died in 1603, arrangements for the funeral were far from straightforward. As Donald Macleod relates in today’s episode, the Empress wanted only a simple service, and to be buried at the Convent where she’d been living.  The King of Spain and his royal court felt very differently!  Victoria was charged with writing music for the Empress’s Requiem Mass, and produced one of his most intense and heartfelt works. Little is known of Victoria’s life after the death of the Empress. He published his Requiem in 1605 and also stepped back from his unofficial role of Director of Music at the convent.  The Empress’s will stipulated that Victoria should say Mass for his late employer every week - which he did until his own death in 1611.

O quam gloriosum
Monteverdi Choir
Sir John Eliot Gardiner, director

O vos omnes
Stile Antico

Missa pro defunctis (excerpt)
Collegium Vocale Gent
Philippe Herreweghe, director

Versa est in luctum
Collegium Vocale Gent
Philippe Herreweghe, director

Libera me (Absolution)
Collegium Vocale Gent
Philippe Herreweghe, director

Missa Salve regina a 8
The Sixteen
Harry Christopher, director

Alma Redemptoris Mater
I Fagiolini
Robert Hollingworth, director

Produced by Luke Whitlock

Composer of the Week: Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611)

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Donald Macleod explores the life and work of Spanish composer Tomás Luis de Victoria.

Donald Macleod explores the life and work of Spanish Renaissance composer Tomás Luis de Victoria.

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