Published
Officium Defunctorum (Requiem)
Officium Defunctorum (Requiem) is an Office of the Dead for six-part choir by the Spanish composer Tomás Luis de Victoria.
After returning to Spain from Rome in 1583, Victoria was appointed by King Philip II as personal chaplain to his sister, Empress Maria of Austria and Portugal, at the Convent of the Descalzas Reales. The empress had retired to the convent after the death of her husband, Emperor Maximilian II, accompanied by her daughter Margaret.
Maria died in February 1603. In her memory, Victoria composed a Requiem Mass, the Officium Defunctorum, regarded by specialists as his masterpiece and described by Victoria himself, in the dedication of the 1605 publication, as his swansong.
Much has been written about the use of the piece in the different funeral rites held after the empress’s death.
The work was published in 1605 by the Royal Press in Madrid and dedicated to the empress’s daughter, Princess Margaret, who had also professed at the same convent.
The Officium Defunctorum consists of ten sections. In addition to the proper movements of the Requiem Mass, Victoria added three pieces: Taedet animam meam, the second lesson of Matins for the Dead; the motet Versa est in luctum; and a responsory. The first two of these take their texts from the Book of Job. All the proper sections of the Requiem Mass are included except the Tract and the Dies irae.