Tomás Luis de Victoria (c. 1549-1611); ESP

Tomás Luis de Victoria (c. 1548–1611) was a Spanish composer and priest born in Ávila and one of the greatest masters of Renaissance sacred polyphony. As a young man he went to Rome, where he studied and worked at institutions associated with the Jesuit Collegio Germanico and may have encountered Palestrina. Ordained a priest in 1575, Victoria returned to Spain in the 1580s and later served as chaplain and musician to the Dowager Empress Maria at the convent of Las Descalzas Reales in Madrid.

Victoria composed almost exclusively sacred vocal music, achieving an unusually intense union of contrapuntal discipline and expressive spirituality. His major works include Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae, the Missa O quam gloriosum, the motet O magnum mysterium, and the Officium Defunctorum, written for the funeral observances of Empress Maria. His concentrated sonorities, sensitive treatment of text, and often dark expressive color give his music a distinctive voice within the late Renaissance.

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