Tomás Luis de Victoria
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".
[1] His surviving oeuvre, unlike that of his colleagues, is almost exclusively sacred and polyphonic vocal music, set to Latin texts.
The original spelling Vitoria (from the city of the same name) was to be used by all members of this family with the exception of Tomás himself, who adopted the Latinized “Victoria.” Hernán Luis Dávila was a prosperous cloth merchant who shrewdly invested his profits into building an expansive real estate portfolio throughout Ávila province.
The Victorias lived on Calle de los Caballeros, which was then lined with wool and silk shops, across from San Juan Bautista, their parish church, and just steps away from the main market square of the city.
Francisca's great-grandfather, Jacob Galfón, briefly took his family to Portugal following the expulsion of the Jews, but returned to Segovia with royal authorization late in 1492, converting to Christianity and taking the name Pedro Suárez de la Concha.
As a result of this, upon Francisco’s death his eldest son Hernán sold the family home in Ávila and moved to their estate in Sanchidrián.
This was only a temporary setback, and the Victorias would soon regain their footing, becoming more involved in banking, in association with their Suárez de la Concha cousins and others based in Castile’s financial capital of the time, Medina del Campo.
Significantly, during this time of financial insecurity Hernán would break with conventional practice and share his inheritance, ensuring that his siblings received educations and dowries.
In Tomás’ case this made possible, along with the support of their uncle the priest Juan Luis de Vitoria, his early music training at Ávila’s cathedral school.
[10] After receiving a grant from Philip II in 1565, Victoria went to Rome and became cantor at the German College founded by St. Ignatius Loyola.
Victoria was also being paid much more at the Descalzas Reales than he would have earned as a cathedral chapelmaster, receiving an annual income from absentee benefices from 1587 to 1611.
Most of the compositions that Victoria wrote that were dedicated to Cardinal Michele Bonelli, Philip II of Spain, or Pope Gregory XIII were not compensated properly.
[26][clarification needed] Stylistically, his music shuns the elaborate counterpoint of many of his contemporaries, preferring simple line and homophonic textures, yet seeking rhythmic variety and sometimes including intense and surprising contrasts.
[citation needed] His melodic writing and use of dissonance is more free than that of Palestrina; occasionally he uses intervals which are prohibited in the strict application of 16th century counterpoint, such as ascending major sixths, or even occasional diminished fourths (for example, a melodic diminished fourth occurs in a passage representing grief in his motet Sancta Maria, occurred).
