Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548 – 1611) was the most famous composer in 16th-century Spain, and was one of the most important composers of the Counter-Reformation, along with Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Orlando di Lasso. Victoria was not only a composer, but also an accomplished organist and singer as well as a Catholic priest. However, he preferred the life of a composer to that of a performer.

Victoria was born in Sanchidrián in the province of Ávila, Castile around 1548 and died in 1611. Victoria's family can be traced back for generations. Not only are the names of the members in his immediate family known, but even the occupation of his grandfather. Victoria was the seventh of nine children born to Francisco Luis de Victoria and Francisca Suárez de la Concha. His mother was of converso descent. After his father's death in 1557, his uncle, Juan Luis, became his guardian. He was a choirboy in Ávila Cathedral. Cathedral records state that his uncle, Juan Luis, presented Victoria's Liber Primus to the Church while reminding them that Victoria had been brought up in the Ávila Cathedral. Because he was such an accomplished organist, many believe that he began studying the keyboard at an early age from a teacher in Ávila. Victoria most likely began studying "the classics" at St. Giles's, a boys' school in Ávila. This school was praised by St.Teresa of Avila and other highly regarded people of music.

He was a master at overlapping and dividing choirs with multiple parts with a gradual decreasing of rhythmic distance throughout. Not only does Victoria incorporate intricate parts for the voices, but the organ is almost treated like a soloist in many of his choral pieces. Victoria did not begin the development of psalm settings or antiphons for two choirs, but he continued and increased the popularity of such repertoire. Victoria reissued works that had been published previously, and included new revisions in each new issue.

The techniques of the parody Mass were over one hundred years old by the time they were taught to the young Tomas Luis de Victoria. From the work of Josquin's generation, through the early sixteenth century, composers used motets (and secular music as well) to unify their settings of the five movements of the Mass Ordinary. Major sections of the Mass should begin by quoting the model's opening phrase, and similar internal motives should further weave the Mass together. But Victoria's 1583 publication of nine Masses included several which bent the parody "rules" nearly to the point of ignoring them. His 1583 Mass on the motet O quam gloriosum, though clearly unified in the sonic world of the five movements, treats its model so loosely as to appear freely composed at times.

This Mass, though based on Victoria's own 1572 motet O quam gloriosum (for All Souls' Day), does not even use the motet's opening phrase, as would be expected in the parody tradition; rather, it treats the second incise of text, "in quo cum Christo" as the principal model motive which appears at the head of several (but not all) movements. The powerful and joyous opening series of chords in the motet may have seemed too distinctive, or too limiting to the resultant Mass movements. Instead, Victoria composes five movements which share several smaller motives derived from other parts of the motet. The most common are a pair of motives - one rising through a melodic fourth, the other descending a third and reascending to tonic - which together set the model's concluding text, "quocumque ierit." He also makes excellent use of a series of descending suspensions which in the motet evoke the penultimate phrase, "sequntur Agnum:" the voices literally "follow" one another to form the gesture. This memorable passage appears several times in the Mass, even bookending the entire setting by being quoted almost verbatim to close both the Kyrie and Agnus Dei, the first and last movements.

Source: Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom%C3%A1s_Luis_de_Victo ria ).

Although originally created for four (4) voices (SATB), I created this Interpretation of the "Missa O quam gloriosum" (O, how glorious is the kingdom) for Woodwind Quartet (Flute, Oboe, English Horn & Bassoon).

Download the sheet music here: https://musescore.com/user/13216/scores/5654436