Tomás Luis de Victoria (sometimes Italianised as da Vittoria; c. 1548 – c. 20–27 August 1611) was the most famous Spanish composer of the Renaissance. He stands with Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Orlande de Lassus as among the principal composers of the late Renaissance, and was "admired above all for the intensity of some of his motets and of his Offices for the Dead and for Holy Week". His surviving oeuvre, unlike that of his colleagues, is almost exclusively sacred and polyphonic vocal music, set to Latin texts. As a Catholic priest, as well as an accomplished organist and singer, his career spanned both Spain and Italy. However, he preferred the life of a composer to that of a performer.
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👉 Tomás Luis de Victoria in the context of Spanish Golden Age
The Spanish Golden Age (Spanish: Siglo de Oro Spanish pronunciation: [ˈsiɣlo ðe ˈoɾo], "Golden Century") was a period that coincided with the political rise of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain and the Spanish Habsburgs, during which arts and literature flourished in Spain. It is associated with the reigns of Isabella I, Ferdinand II, Charles V, Philip II, Philip III, and Philip IV. The Golden Age is generally considered to begin in 1492, marked by the end of the Reconquista, Christopher Columbus’s voyages, and the publication of Antonio de Nebrija's Grammar of the Castilian Language. It ended around 1659 with the Treaty of the Pyrenees, though some extend it to 1681, after the death of Pedro Calderón de la Barca.
The period of cultural flourishing saw major patrons, with El Escorial attracting leading artists including El Greco, contributing to a distinct Spanish style, and also includes the Plateresque/Renaissance and early Spanish Baroque styles, with major figures like Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Luis de Góngora, Diego Velázquez, and composers such as Tomás Luis de Victoria and Francisco Guerrero.
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Tomás Luis de Victoria in the context of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (between 3 February 1525 and 2 February 1526 – 2 February 1594) was an Italian composer of late Renaissance music. The central representative of the Roman School, with Orlande de Lassus and Tomás Luis de Victoria, Palestrina is considered the leading composer of late 16th-century Europe. Palestrina was one of the few Renaissance composers never entirely forgotten, but it was the so-called "Palestrinian style" of counterpoint—especially as codified by Johann Joseph Fux—rather than his individual compositions that exerted the greatest influence.
Born in the town of Palestrina in the Papal States, Palestrina moved to Rome as a child and underwent musical studies there. In 1551, Pope Julius III appointed him maestro di cappella of the Cappella Giulia at St. Peter's Basilica. He left the post four years later, unable to continue as a layman under the papacy of Paul IV, and held similar positions at St. John Lateran and Santa Maria Maggiore in the following decade. Palestrina returned to the Cappella Giulia in 1571 and remained at St Peter's until his death in 1594.
Tomás Luis de Victoria in the context of New Christians
New Christian (Latin: Novus Christianus; Spanish: Cristiano Nuevo; Portuguese: Cristão-Novo; Catalan: Cristià Nou; Ladino: Kristiano Muevo; Arabic: المسيحيون الجدد) was a socio-religious designation and legal distinction referring to the population of former Jewish and Muslim converts to Christianity in the Spanish and Portuguese empires, and their respective colonies in the New World. The term was used from the 15th century onwards primarily to describe the descendants of the Sephardic Jews and Moors that were baptized into the Catholic Church following the Alhambra Decree of 1492. The Alhambra Decree, also known as the Edict of Expulsion, was an anti-Jewish law made by the Catholic Monarchs upon the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula. It required Jews to convert to Roman Catholicism or be expelled from Spain. Most of the history of the "New Christians" refers to the Jewish converts, who were generally known as Conversos (or in a more derogatory fashion Marranos), while the Muslim converts were called Moriscos.
Because these conversions were achieved in part through coercion and also with the threat of expulsion, especially when it came to the Jews, the Catholic Inquisition and Iberian monarchs suspected a number of the "New Christians" of being crypto-Jews. Subsequently, the Spanish Inquisition and then the Portuguese Inquisition was created to enforce Catholic orthodoxy and to investigate allegations of heresy. This became a political issue in the kingdoms of the Portuguese–Spanish Union itself and their respective empires abroad, particularly in Spanish America, Portuguese America, and the Caribbean. Sometimes "New Christians" travelled to territories controlled by Protestant enemies of Spain, such as the Dutch Empire, the early English Empire, or Huguenot-influenced areas of the Kingdom of France such as Bordeaux, and openly practiced Judaism, which furthered suspicion of Jewish crypsis. Nevertheless, a significant number of those "New Christians" of converso ancestry were deemed by Spanish society as sincerely Catholic and they still managed to attain prominence, whether religious (St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Ávila, St. John of Ávila, St. Joseph of Anchieta, Tomás Luis de Victoria, Tomás de Torquemada, Diego Laynez, Francisco de Vitoria, Francisco Suárez, and others) or political (Juan de Oñate, Luis de Carvajal y de la Cueva, Hernán Pérez de Quesada, Luis de Santángel, and others).
Tomás Luis de Victoria in the context of Orlande de Lassus
Orlando di Lasso (various other names; probably c. 1532 – 14 June 1594) was a composer of the late Renaissance. The chief representative of the mature polyphonic style in the Franco-Flemish school, Lasso stands with William Byrd, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, and Tomás Luis de Victoria as one of the leading composers of the later Renaissance. Immensely prolific, his music varies considerably in style and genres, which gave him unprecedented popularity throughout Europe.