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Sunday, November 10, 2013

Requiem (Victoria)

In memory of those who've lost their lives in the Philippines this week. Many thanks to this good young choral group for recording and webcasting this beautiful music.




From the YouTube page:
Officium defunctorum
(sex vocibus, in obitu et obsequiis sacrae imperatricis, Madrid, 1605)
by Tomás Luis de Victoria (c. 1548-1611)

Performed by University of North Texas Collegium Singers, directed by Richard Sparks.

Soloists: Laurissa Backlin, Julianna Emanski, Fiona Gillespie, sopranos; Holly Dalrymple (chant incipits); Fabiana Gonzalez, Rachael Hardy, Alyssa Narum, altos; Tucker Bilodeau, Aaron Harp, tenors; Christopher Jackson, bass.

00:50 - Taedet animam meam
04:15 - Introitus
09:45 - Kyrie
12:07 - Graduale
14:45 - Offertorium
18:15 - Sanctus y Benedictus
21:18 - Agnus Dei
24:00 - Communio
27:30 - Motet: Versa est in luctum
30:41 - Libera me

Performance from program "Victoria Requiem" as part of Early Music America's Young Performers Festival June 6, 2012, 2:30 PM, St. Mark's Episcopal Church (Berkeley, CA).

UNT Collegium Singers
Cantus 1 -- Laurissa Backlin, Julianna Emanski, Fiona Gillespie
Cantus 2 -- Holly Dalrymple, Fabiana Gonzalez, Oneyda Padierna
Altus -- Rachael Hardy, Alyssa Narum
Tenor 1 -- Tucker Bilodeau, Aaron Harp
Tenor 2 -- Bradley King, Jonathan Sauceda
Bass -- Christopher Jackson, Nathaniel Mattingly

Performance from program "Victoria Requiem" as part of Early Music America's Young Performers Festival June 6, 2012, 2:30 PM, St. Mark's Episcopal Church (Berkeley, CA).

About this piece, from Wikipedia:
Officium Defunctorum is a musical setting of the Office of the Dead composed by the Spanish Renaissance composer Tomás Luis de Victoria in 1603. It includes settings of the movements of the Requiem Mass, accounting for about 26 minutes of the 42 minute composition, and the work is sometimes referred to as Victoria's Requiem.

History

Officium Defunctorum was composed for the funeral of the Dowager Empress Maria, sister of Philip II of Spain, daughter of Charles V, wife of Maximilian II and mother of two emperors; it was dedicated to Princess Margaret for “the obsequies of your most revered mother”.[1] The Empress Maria died on February 26, 1603 and the great obsequies were performed on April 22 and 23. Victoria was employed as personal chaplain to the Empress Maria from 1586 to the time of her death.

Victoria published eleven volumes of his music during his lifetime, representing the majority of his compositional output. Officium Defunctorum, the only work to be published by itself, was the eleventh volume and the last work Victoria published. The date of publication, 1605, is often included with the title to differentiate the Officium Defunctorum from Victoria's other setting of the Requiem Mass (in 1583, Victoria composed and published a book of Masses (Reprinted in 1592) including a Missa pro defunctis for four-part choir).

Structure

Officium Defunctorum is scored for six-part SSATTB chorus. It includes an entire Office of the Dead: in addition to a Requiem Mass, Victoria sets an extra-liturgical funeral motet, a lesson that belongs to Matins (scored for only SATB and not always included in concert performances), and the ceremony of Absolution which follows the Mass. Polyphonic sections are separated by unaccompanied chant incipits Victoria printed himself. The Soprano II usually carries the cantus firmus, though "it very often disappears into the surrounding part-writing since the chant does not move as slowly as most cantus firmus parts and the polyphony does not generally move very fast."[2] The sections of the work are as follows:
  • Taedet animam meam
Second Lesson of Matins (Job 10:1-7)
  • Missa Pro Defunctis (Mass for the Dead)
With the Council of Trent, the liturgy of the Requiem Mass was standardized. Victoria sets all of the Requiem Mass sections except the Dies Irae sequence.
  • Versa est in luctum cithara mea (Funeral motet)
  • The Absolution: Responsory
    • Libera me
    • Kyrie

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