Requiem Aeternam - Music for All Saints and All Souls

Most of Victoria's church music was written during the twenty years he spent in Rome, between 1567 and 1587. During this time Victoria and other the composers based in churches in Rome, including his teacher Palestrina, were under great pressure to comply with the Counter-Reformation zeal that was sweeping Catholic Europe as a backlash to the spread of the reformed church. One of the main concerns of the Catholic Church was to make the liturgy more accessible to congregations, and this clearly had an impact on the music written for services. In 1562, the Council of Trent (the Council established to determine the doctrines of the Church) suggested that 'all things should indeed be so ordered that the Masses ... may reach tranquilly into the ears and hearts of those who hear them, when everything is executed clearly and at the right speed ... let nothing profane be intermingled, but only hymns and divine praises. The whole plan of singing in musical modes should be constituted ... in such a way that the words may be clearly understood by all ... They shall also banish from church all music that contains, whether in the singing or in the organ playing, things that are lascivious or impure'.

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During this time in Rome, Victoria was closely associated with two orders that reflect the spiritual fecundity of the Counter-Reformation. The Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, formed in 1540 by fellow Spaniard Ignatius Loyola, followed a mission of education and instruction. Victoria’s career in Rome was spent at two colleges for trainee priests that were run by the Jesuits. In 1567 he was sent to the German College, where he possibly studied under Palestrina. In 1571 he became a teacher at the German College, and succeeded Palestrina as maestro di cappella at the Roman College. And when he retired in 1578, Victoria became Chaplain of San Girolamo della Carita, where Philip Neri founded the first Congregation of the Oratory, where preaching and music was an important feature (the first oratorios were intended to be heard in Oratorian services).

The motet O quam gloriosum opens Victoria’s first published collection of motets, Motecta quae 4, 5, 6, 8 vocibus concinuntur, which appeared in print in 1572, the year after he became maestro at the German College. Victoria demonstrated his appreciation by dedicating the collection to the Cardinal-Bishop of Augsburg, a patron of the German College. The motet takes as its text an antiphon to be sung before the Magnificat at Second Vespers on the Feast of All Saints, 1 November. The joyous chordal opening at the words ‘O quam gloriosum’ creates a stunning accumulative effect that is a masterstroke by the young composer. Elsewhere, Victoria already shows his mastery of Palestrina’s smooth vocal writing.

The missa O quam gloriosum appears in Victoria’s Liber duo missarum, published in 1583 and dedicated to Philip II of Spain, who was also a patron of the German College.

In this work Victoria draws on the tradition of the parody mass, where composers based a mass on a pre-existing model, either a chanson or motet. Victoria uses his own motet O quam gloriosum as the model.

There were established procedures for writing parody masses: the Kyrie I, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei would all begin with the same musical theme; the use of other melodic ideas from the model was a sign that the work was more praiseworthy; the Gloria and Credo should use short and familiar melodic ideas, while the Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus Dei should use longer and more elaborate ideas; special care must be taken over the words 'Jesu Christe' and the passage 'Et incarnatus est' to 'Crucifixus'.

Victoria follows these compositional conventions closely. The principal idea of the motet at the words 'in quo cum Christo', is used in the mass for the Kyrie I, Gloria ('Cum Sancto Spiritu') Credo ('et vitam venturi saeculi. Amen'), Agnus Dei ('qui tollis'). The melody at 'quocumque ierit' can be heard in Kyrie II, Gloria ('Filius Patris'), Credo ('non erit finis') and Sanctus ('gloria tua').

However, he does not re-use the stirring sonorous opening of the motet, and the start of the Gloria and Credo, while beginning with the same material, is not based on anything in the motet. At the more intimate moments in the text ('Jesu Christe' in the Gloria, 'Et incarnatus est' in the Credo) Victoria introduces a sense of reverence through very simple means (a change of texture). But this work is so much more than an exercise: it is a joyous affirmation of the spiritual confidence in Rome during the height of the Counter-Reformation.

Christe redemptor omnium is the hymn for Second Vespers on the Feast of All Saints: Victoria sets alternate verses to plainsong and polyphony, with the choral verses drawing on the hymn chant (verse 2, tenor; verse 4, soprano; verse 6, soprano and bass).

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