With the promulgation of the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory in the later Middle Ages, the regular performance of obituary masses for the benefit of departed souls took on great urgency. Yearly, on All Souls' Day (November 2), the Catholic Church says a solemn mass and Office for all the departed; the same liturgy applies to all Christian burials, and memorial prayer services for deceased individuals. By the sixteenth century, polyphonic composition of some selected movements of the requiem mass became quite common; even during the tumult of the Reformation, Catholic-nationality composers such as Spaniards Francisco Guerrero and Cristóbal de Morales contributed to the tradition. It should come as no surprise that their younger colleague Tomás Luis de Victoria wrote two requiems, the first appearing in print as early as his first Book of Masses (Rome, 1583). Moreover, he reissued the same piece of music in the second Book (1592, also published in Rome, though Victoria was back in Madrid), in which he attempted an ambitious program of a complete series of masses for the seasons of the liturgical year, ending with the four-voiced Requiem. The better-known 1605 Officium defunctorum, containing a six-voiced Requiem mass, builds upon this first composition.

Victoria spent most of the first half of his career serving as both priest and musician in Rome, possibly even studying composition under Palestrina (who, of course, also wrote an austere requiem). But while the classicizing influence of the Roman style ever shows in his music, Victoria's deeply emotional spirituality imbues it with passion. The 1583 Requiem is no exception. Structurally, he fulfills all liturgical propriety, setting the Introit "Requiem aeternam" (from which the requiem mass itself derives its name), the Kyrie, Gradual, Offertory "Domine Jesu Christe," Sanctus, Agnus Dei I-III, and Communion "Lux aeterna." To this he appends the Responsory "Libera me," a solemn prayer from the burial service that follows the mass, and in the 1592 print, two Responsories from the Office of Matins, "Peccantem me" and "Credo quod Redemptor." All movements are supplied with plainchant incipits, and in all but the last two the complete Gregorian chant for the requiem mass is paraphrased in the soprano voice (the two Responsories give the cantus firmus to the tenor). But within these strictures, Victoria composes music with an utter suavity of harmonic and melodic gesture. His melodies are often tinged by accidental inflections and a characteristic melodic "fingerprint"—a melody that explicitly outlines a diminished fourth—may be seen in most voices. His greater use of accidentals also creates a richer harmonic palette in comparison to Palestrina, or even to his countryman Morales. But the 1583 Requiem avoids the darker colors of, for instance, the 1544 Morales Requiem, or even the compact austerity of his own 1605 Requiem. This work, though impassioned, inhabits a generally higher vocal range and uses more accidentals in the "sharpward" direction. Perhaps the younger Victoria took somewhat more lightly the Renaissance art of Memento Mori.

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