Tomas Louis de Victoria: Passion

What is the essential quality of a work of art that allows a piece of music composed in 1585 to still deeply move and touch us today? Ultimately, it is the essence of the music itself that provides the key to this mystery. The greatest purity of commitment and sensitivity is required of the performers: each voice, each instrument must embrace the deep meaning of each melody and modulation, and share with the other voices the absolute need to find meaning and, above all, grace. As La Fontaine said, “That grace which is more beautiful than beauty itself”, because it touches our soul directly ..

The Officium Hebdomadæ Sanctæ by Tomás Luis de Victoria is one of the most powerful examples of a composer’s creative genius, for it is in a perfect way a mystical, shattering masterpiece on the Passion of Christ, of great purity and at the same time created with infinite subtlety, Ad majorem Dei gloriam. (JORDI SAVALL)