Tomás Luis de Victoria's Officium defunctorum, written for the Exequies of the Holy Roman Empress María of Austria (1528–1603), is possibly the most famous of the polyphonic Requiem Masses, and its enduring popularity in modern performance practice brought Spanish Requiems to the fore as a particular type, entwined with other perceived notions on fascination of mysticism and death rituals within the art and liturgical culture of Spain more generally. Requiem Masses and music for the dead stand apart from most other polyphonic repertory because of their particular liturgical context; despite this, there is surprisingly not a great deal of research around the topic. Owen Rees has taken up the challenge of providing a thorough account of Victoria's Officium defunctorum by assessing its context and musical components against a backdrop of a wide selection of composers of polyphony not only in the Iberian peninsula, but also in continental Europe more widely. The book challenges romanticising notions attached to the composition that arise from misconceptions regarding the circumstances of its creation. Rees also sets out to reassess other notions attached to the work for giving it additional meaning beyond its original context: its reputation as a Requiem for the age referred to as the Golden Age of Spain, and its publication year sitting on a perceived stylistic hinge of Renaissance and Baroque.
The book encompasses a commendable variety of approaches to the work. The first two chapters provide a context of the milieu in which the composition arose and discuss the practicalities of conducting the exequies in the Spanish Habsburg court. Rees examines the intricacies of Victoria's professional position in relation to the deceased Empress María's household and the possible circumstances leading to his commission for composing the Requiem. The second chapter in particular describes the exequies in which the Officium defunctorum was only one part of a rich web of ritual and commemoration. Rees has chosen to present this as a narrative starting from María's illness and death in February 1603 to the exequies organised in April, which is ‘complemented by contextual explanations – some of them necessarily protracted – at the relevant points’ (p. 36). These ‘necessary protractions’ are useful indeed for the reader and illustrate especially well the conundrum of Victoria managing to compose the work to such a short time-scale, with plausible suggestions on the process of finding solutions and the rationale of using pre-existing musical material, especially for Libera me Domine. The life of the empress rightly informs the first two chapters, and in particular the progress of her final illness and death are described in detail.
The third chapter approaches the material history of the Officium defunctorum through analysis of its first printed publication in the wider context of music printing and publishing of the time, and the existing evidence of its dissemination. The first publication of Victoria's Requiem was in 1605 by Juan Flamenco in Madrid in folio choirbook format. Pro defunctis masses had appeared in printed polyphonic choirbooks from the very start, usually as the final item in a large book; the publication of Victoria's Officium defunctorum is more of a booklet however, containing only thirty folios. This concept of a single-item booklet of a Requiem Mass seems unique when compared with the usual publishing choices in format and style in both Iberia and elsewhere in Europe. Printing folio-sized booklets of polyphonic music was not completely new: there are some examples from the Low Countries and France, though usually as part of a composite volume. Rees provides a vivid if somewhat critical account of Flamenco's efforts in producing Victoria's Officium defunctorum; Flamenco's layout of the pages is described as ‘crowded’ in contrast to previous research evaluating its aesthetics in a more positive light. Despite the fame of the Requiem today, the printed edition was not necessarily made with institutional use in mind, but more as a publication in commemoration of the deceased empress. The commissioning of the publication did not come directly from the Royal Habsburg family, though Rees considers it possible that Empress María's daughter Margarita may have contributed to the production costs. The certain uniqueness of the material properties of the first publication of the Requiem provides a view on considering printed sources of music beyond their immediate performative use. Although Flamenco's technical shortcomings in printing the booklet are made evident, the publication certainly had a role as a commemorative item, setting it apart from other folio-sized publications of polyphony of the time.
The fourth chapter provides an analysis of the Requiem itself. This chapter is rightfully the longest, filled with precise detail of the tonal, modal, textural as well as textual devices used by Victoria in his compositional process. Rees illustrates Victoria's techniques for compositional unity through such concepts as ‘harmonic and tonal chiaroscuro’ for the juxtaposition of musical textures, as well as the use of a ‘6 + 5 module’ – a contrapuntal device illustrated in Example 4.5 – in occurrences throughout the various parts of the Requiem. The relation between chant and polyphony receives much attention, which allows a full view of the Requiem and not just its polyphonic parts. The contents of the fourth chapter are supported by an edition made by Rees that is freely available for download. The addition of a full edition allows a pleasant synoptic reading experience and makes the following of Rees's examples easy, rather than relying on lengthy illustrated examples embedded among the text. The final chapter addresses the later performance practice of the composition and its reception beyond its immediate contemporary context all the way to the twenty-first century. Rees traces the historiography of Victoria's biography and possible origins of some of its errors, including the mixing-up of Victoria's biographical details with those of Lassus. The reception history is divided between different geographic locations and their particular takes on the revived interest in early music and conceptualising the Requiem, and it also considers the modern editions of the work, analysing their interpretations as well as influence on recordings. There is a handy discography listing all the existing recordings of the Officium defunctorum.
A particular strength of Rees's work is its remarkably large comparative analysis of not only Iberian contemporary Requiem compositions, but also the stylistic traits of Requiems from Italian and northern (Franco-Flemish) composers. This painstaking research serves to debunk some of Victoria's compositional techniques and stylistic choices labelled as particularly ‘Spanish’. In fact, Rees's analysis shows that the perceived stylistic traits between geographic locations are very fluid indeed; for example, the notion that the particular placement of the cantus firmus in the top voice or the use of proportio dupla as eliciting ‘sobriety of style’ are Iberian traits is examined and challenged thoroughly. Also, the addition of motet Libera me and its compositional relationship to the rest of the Officium defunctorum are assessed against the Italian (Roman), French and Iberian traditions, with some common ground found with French publications. In particular Rees's work examining the relation between chant and polyphony opens new avenues for further research on the influence of regional and local chant traditions on polyphonic repertory in terms of the differences in intonations of chant and their relation to text-setting in polyphony. Furthermore, his analysis provides ample opportunity to throw the research open to the wider genre of Requiem Masses and the compositional influences shared by Victoria and his contemporaries.
The themes chosen by Rees blend seamlessly between the chapter sections in the book, always evaluating details within their broader context: the placement of text and word-repetitions are evaluated against the possible practicalities of page setup in the first publication by Juan Flamenco, and the infelicities of the first publication are identified as possible causes for misconceptions arising from later editions and misunderstanding of Victoria's chosen tonal peculiarities. The organisation of the components of the Officium defunctorum is also considered with respect to the possible choices made in modern performances.
Rees's masterly research on both the composition and its various contexts clarifies the mythical status of Victoria's Officium defunctorum, and in November 2020 his outstanding efforts in this book were recognised by its receiving the Robert M. Stevenson Award of the American Musicological Society. The book and its meticulous research on both the composition itself and its later incarnations serve to challenge pre-conceived notions of Victoria's much-loved work, and provide ample direction for further research on Requiem Masses and various aspects of musical rituals for the dead, both in Victoria's era and beyond.
