The Catholic liturgy for the office of Matins on Maundy Thursday (Thursday before Easter) features a service of "Tenebrae," or darkening of the church; the altar candles are gradually extinguished as the texts which commemorate the betrayal of Christ progress. Three sets of three Psalms are chanted, each with a lesson and a Responsory appended; one candle dims for each liturgical group. The devout Spanish composer Tomas Luis de Victoria wrote a series of eighteen such Responsories, publishing them in Rome in 1585. And though a piece such as Unus ex discipulis meis would have been heard segmented by the liturgy, and may be performed and appreciated on its own, it belongs ultimately in the entire context of the set.

Each of the first group of three Responsories, Amicus meus, Judas mercator, and Unus ex discipulis (indeed all six groups of three in the collection), are set in the same mode (or "key:" transposed Dorian), and follow the prescribed Responsory structure aBcB; Unus ex discipulis as the conclusion of a group adds a final refrain to this structure, yielding aBcBaB. This piece also shares textual and musical elements with its companions, as well. The refrain line "Melius illi erat" is exactly the same as a textual section in Judas mercator, and nearly identical to the "versicle" (c section) of the first Responsory. The general import of the text here, paraphrasing closely the Passion narrative as found in Matthew 26:21-24, Mark 14:18-21, and Luke 22:21-22, further accords with the first two Responsories of the set.

But within its strict liturgical, structural, and modal guidelines, the piece subtly but remarkably evokes its mood. All three of the Responsory group settings display dramatic opening gambits: Amicus meus ("My friend") opens with a unison pitch which diverges from its unanimity, Judas mercator nearly shouts the name of the betrayer in block chords. Here the text "One of my disciples" is portrayed with but a single voice singing the first two measures, and the third measure is hauntingly open in sonority. Victoria also alludes to his own setting at the text "Woe to him [Judas]!" by a sudden turn to the very same block chords with which the previous Responsory had begun.



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