Tomás Luis de Victoria

Tomás Luis de Victoria was born around 1548 in Ávila, Castile, into a large and devout family: he was the seventh of eleven children. His father died when he was only nine, and his uncle, a priest, took charge of his education. Around 1558 he became a choirboy at Ávila Cathedral, where he learned singing, organ and composition. Ávila was also the city of St Teresa, the great mystic who reformed the Carmelite order, and the fervour of his music has often been linked to that spiritual climate.

Around 1565, when his voice broke, he went to Rome on a grant from King Philip II. He studied at the Collegium Germanicum, founded by the Jesuits to train priests for the lands affected by the Reformation. There he probably met Palestrina, who was then teaching at the neighbouring Roman Seminary and whose influence is evident in his writing. By 1569 he was a singer and organist at Santa Maria di Monserrato, the church of the Aragonese community in Rome.

In 1572 he published his first book of motets, dedicated to Cardinal Otto von Truchsess, which already contains masterpieces such as O magnum mysterium and O quam gloriosum. He then succeeded Palestrina as choirmaster of the Roman Seminary and later became master at the Collegium Germanicum. Ordained priest in 1575, a few years later he joined the Congregation of the Oratory founded by St Philip Neri, known for its prayer meetings with music.

His Roman publications were very successful: books of masses, Magnificats and hymns. In 1583 he dedicated two books of masses to King Philip II and expressed his wish to return to Spain. In 1585 he published his Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae, the complete music for Holy Week, whose Tenebrae responsories, of overwhelming dramatic intensity, are regarded as one of the summits of sacred music.

In 1587 Victoria returned to Madrid, where he became chaplain to the Dowager Empress Maria of Austria, sister of Philip II and widow of Emperor Maximilian II, who had retired to the royal convent of the Descalzas Reales, a house of Poor Clares. He stayed there until his death, as choirmaster and later organist. The post gave him a quiet life far from the great courts and time to oversee the publication of his works in Rome, Venice and Madrid.

When the empress died in 1603 he composed for her funeral the six-voice Officium defunctorum, published in 1605, which he described as his “swan song”. This requiem, of grave and luminous beauty, is often regarded as his masterpiece. Unlike Palestrina or Lassus, Victoria wrote only sacred music, and only to Latin texts: he left no madrigals or secular songs.

His music is marked by intense, direct expression. He used bolder dissonances than Palestrina, harmonies that sometimes anticipate the Baroque, and a dramatic sense that follows every word of the text. His works are often shorter and more concentrated than those of his contemporaries. Victoria died in Madrid on 27 August 1611. He is now regarded as the greatest composer of the Spanish Renaissance and one of the major figures of European polyphony.