, Cyprian of Carthage
Officium defunctorum: Versa est in luctum
Tomás Luis de Victoria
Recording
Westminster Cathedral Choir, David Hill
- Album
- Victoria: Requiem
- Year
- 1987
- Length
- Period
- Renaissance polyphony
- Listen
Painting
Georges de La Tour
The Penitent Magdalen, ca. 1640
The piece
Victoria wrote the six-voice Officium defunctorum (1605) for the funeral of the Dowager Empress María; it was his last published work. This motet sets Job 30:31 and 7:16: “My harp is turned to mourning … spare me, Lord, for my days are nothing.”
The recording
Westminster Cathedral's choir of men and boys under David Hill, recorded in the cathedral. A Gramophone Critics' Choice and winner of the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik; The Good CD Guide praised its “depth and body of tone.”
Other recordings
The Tallis Scholars under Peter Phillips (Gimell, 1987), and the Gabrieli Consort under Paul McCreesh (Archiv), which places the music in a reconstructed liturgy with chant.