Second only to the Mass in liturgical importance to the Sixteenth-century Catholic Church, the Canticle of Mary - the Magnificat - would be sung at the close of each day's service of Vespers. Sundays and festal occasions in the larger houses of worship would properly be adorned by performance of polyphony, and many Catholic composers served this liturgical need by publishing of a complete set of eight or sixteen settings of the Magnificat, covering all eight "tones" (or keys). The first two great composers of the Spanish Counter-Reformation, Morales and Guerrero, for instance, each published a complete Magnificat collection while still young; Tomas Luis de Victoria similarly issued his first Magnificat compositions in 1576, and a complete set of sixteen in 1583. Later, when he was publishing an anthology of mostly polychoral music dedicated to the youthful Emperor Philip III, Victoria reworked certain movements from his 1576 Magnificat primi toni, and incorporated them into this first-tone setting for eight voices.

Standard performance practice called for alternatim singing of the polyphonic Magnificat: either the even verses or the odd would be set in parts, and these would alternate with plainchant performance of the appropriate tone. Victoria's 1576 first-tone Magnificat actually comprises two settings—one of the even verses and one of the odd. The 1600 version, however, borrows material from both, and sets all twelve textual verses (from Luke 1:46-55). Verses which he takes verbatim from his earlier setting (and thus which are given to single choirs only) include "anima mea," "quia fecit," "et misericordia," and "suscepit Israel." The other verses receive new settings, some newly written for four contrapuntal voices (such as the cantus firmus setting of "et exultavit"), some for homophonic textures (the blisteringly quick triple-time "deposuit"), one odd movement (an alternate "et misericordia") for a three-in-one canon, and several for the full eight-voice texture. The complete polychoral movements come every two or three verses, and fling grand splashes of musical color upon the piece as a whole.



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