Victoria published a completely homophonic setting of this pathetic text from the book of Job at the end of his 1605 Officium defunctorum, or Requiem Mass. His last publication, and his last known composition, the 1605 Requiem seems to distill a lifetime of musical and spiritual exercises into an austere yet deeply affective act of mourning over the death of his patron for twenty-four years, the Dowager Empress Maria. The Requiem liturgy also serves the Catholic Church, of course, in the annual observation of All Souls' Day (November 2), and in the celebration of anniversary memorial services. The specific text Taedet animam meam (Job 10:1-7) occurs as a Lesson in the Office of Matins, a service offered in the morning of a funeral or memorial.

Victoria's setting only departs from simple homophony (chordal texture) in minor details of passing notes and suspensions. It thus allows direct comprehension of the text, and bears some resemblance to improvised choral polyphony. But the harmonic language is far more daring and intense than any amateur improvisation session could imagine. From the opening gesture - a pair of unadorned harmonies that apparently "fall," followed by a breathless rest for just the first word, "Tadet" ("It is a weariness") - harmony is paramount. Indeed, by making the harmonic changes the single foregrounded feature of his setting, Victoria calls striking attention to his skill in twisting that very musical element. And this, too, intimately serves the sense of the text, which proceeds to question the impenetrability of God's judgements. What better way to evoke this theological point in music than by a deceptive cadence, which moves with an inscrutable logic to some unexpected harmonic end? The creator's inscrutable logic is maddeningly frequent in Victoria's composition.



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19.Motectum: Versa est luctum

Victoria's last publication of his lifetime, the 1605 Officium defunctorum, contains the "swan song" Requiem Mass in six voices, and a small number of varia from the burial service. All of this music, apparently, was intended first as an act of honor and mourning for the obsequies of Victoria's long-time patron the Dowager Empress Maria. The deluxe printed edition, however, was also widely sold, and would have served the Church's liturgical needs for funerals and anniversary ("obituary") services for the departed. The texts of the Requiem speak alternately of grief, and of consolation in the hope of salvation; Victoria, however, chose to append three motets with much greater emphasis on mourning! They include a lesson from Job (Taedet animam meam, "My soul is weary of my life"), the "Libera me" (a Responsory prayer for delivery in anticipation of the Day of Judgement), and the funeral motet Versa est in luctum. The text of Versa est is also from Job, linking Job 30:31 and 7:16b. The musical references to the harp, organ, and voices of weeping, should have endeared the text to composers, but only the Portuguese Alonso Lobo is known to have made another setting.

Victoria's setting for a rich texture of six voices gives more evidence than any other piece in the 1605 Requiem of the composer's stylistic debt to Palestrina, exposing several clear points of imitation, and a preponderance of quasi-cadential suspensions throughout. Perhaps this stylistic nod indicates Victoria's intent to present a formalized image of "Musicians." However, these musicians prove far from reserved in their immediate activity - "tuning the harp to mourning." After presenting the first phrase of text in classic double imitation which gradually expands across musical space, the composer begins painting a series of vivid sonic images. Quick trio passages in "strumming" rhythm evoke the sounds of the cithara (harp), a suddenly more sonorous trio the organ (Victoria further embeds a pun into this section by alluding to a harmonic practice called "organum"). The words "vocem flentium" ("voice of weeping") arrive on a painfully dissonant chord: an augmented sonority containing both B-flat and F-sharp simultaneously. But the most powerful musical gesture of the motet is saved for the desperate textual cry for salvation "Parce mihi, Domine." First one soprano part, and then the other, traverse extraordinary leaps upwards to their highest notes while singing this text, and remain on the same piercing high-E through the subsequent phrase. The musicians performing the liturgical rituals serve quite literally in this moment the function, observed in many world cultures, of the professional mourner: ritual wailing.



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