OFFICIUM DEFUNCTORUM

The swan song of the Spanish Renaissance

The Officium Defunctorum by Tomás Luis de Victoria, composed for the funeral rites of Empress Maria of Austria in 1605, is the work that culminates the Spanish musical Renaissance. This monumental composition combines mass, matins lessons, responsories and motets, unfolding a polyphony of exceptional emotional and spiritual depth. Victoria alternates moments of homophonic sobriety with subtle imitations, integrating plainchant as a guiding thread and giving each section intense expressiveness.

From the solitude and suffering of Taedet animam meam to the inner peace of Versa est in luctum, the work expresses the soul's transition in the face of death with austere and sublime beauty. Its six-voice architecture, more complex than the usual practices in the Peninsula, underscores the grandeur of the work and its character as an epilogue of an era.

The vocal ensemble O Vos Omnes, under the direction of Xavier Pastrana, presents this repertoire with a balance between historical rigour and expressive intensity. The circular arrangement of the space - with the vocal group at the centre and the audience surrounding them in darkness - transforms the listening into an immersive experience through music that has traversed centuries without losing its power.