Officium Defunctorum, Op. 81, No. 2a (1603/2017)

Program Notes:

Tomás Luis de Victoria (ca. 1548-1611) may be thought of as the "Spanish Palestrina" - a rough contemporary in both dates and style. As a Counter-Reformation composer, like the more-discussed-in-undergraduate-music-history-courses Palestrina, Victoria was very concerned with setting text in a way that allowed it to be declaimed and perceived clearly. Despite the tightly-worked polyphonic texture, cadences tend to coincide with the introduction of new text, and a simple clarity in treatment of dissonance pervades the work.