Tomás Luis de Victoria: |Requiem Officium defunctorum

With their recent recording of the Officium defunctorum, the Kammerchor Saarbrücken (Chamber Choir Saarbruecken) and its director Georg Grün commemorate the 400th anniversary of Tomás Luis de Victoria’s death: one of the greatest Spanish composers, de Victoria spent his entire life and composed all of his works in the service of the Catholic Church. De Victoria composed his well-known requiem Officium defunctorum for the funeral of the late widowed empress, Maria of Austria, in 1603. It is considered the high-point within his œuvre, combining all elements of de Victoria’s thinking and featuring his compositional hallmarks. Alongside de Victoria’s Officium defunctorum Georg Grün has recorded three motets by the same composer which are, like the requiem, not only set for six-parts but also relate to the topic of human mortality in just as profound a manner, although they are almost unknown today.