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The sacred music of priest-composer Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611) — regarded as the greatest Spanish composer of all time and one of the premier High Renaissance/early Baroque composers of any nationality — will be spotlighted in two campus concerts next week to commemorate the 400th anniversary of his death.
Organized by the Music Department, the concerts — free and open to the public — take place on Oct. 12 and 13 at 7:30 p.m. in St. Mary’s Chapel, and showcase the extraordinary musical activity of the Jesuit German College in Rome at the height of its glory, according to Music Department Chairman and Professor Michael Noone.
The two musical events — titled “Masterworks from the Jesuit German College in Rome: Tomás Luis de Victoria and Giacomo Carissimi” and “Making History-Making Music: the Jesuit Musical Tradition in Italy and England” — also accompany the United States release of a 10-CD collection of Victoria’s works by Noone and his London-based Ensemble Plus Ultra [www.ensembleplusultra.com]. Jesuit Institute Director and Rector T. Frank Kennedy, SJ, will officially launch the CDs at a McMullen Museum of Art reception following the Oct. 13 concert.
"At a time when the CD industry is in crisis, it's remarkable that a label as prestigious as DGG Archiv would release not one but ten CDs of liturgical polyphony by Tomás Luis de Victoria,” Noone said. “Yet the fact that they have is resounding testimony to the superlative quality of his composition. This is music of the highest quality."
The project, he notes, brought together 42 musicians from several countries to record more than 90 works. In 2008 and 2009, Noone’s team spent more than 60 days in Spanish and English churches renowned for their acoustics recording in excess of 12 hours of music.
Following the release in Spain of six of the CDs, two were named among 2010 “exceptional discs” by the magazine Sherzo. The BBC described the CDs as “an absolute polyphonic feast,” “beautifully recorded” and “a treasure trove for the Victoria anniversary.”
A student, and later a professor, at the Jesuit German College, Victoria was the first of a long line of great composers whose association with the Society of Jesus was decisive for the history of Western Music, according to Noone.
Under Noone’s direction, the Ensemble Plus Ultra will present the composer’s finest works, as well as compositions by Victoria’s successor at the college, Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674). Noone describes the Oct. 13 concert as something of a movable feast: It begins in St. Mary’s Chapel and concludes in the McMullen Museum, where the ensemble will perform music by William Byrd (1543-1623) as an accompaniment to the current exhibition “Making History: Antiquaries in Britain.” The concert “takes its cue from the exhibition,” Noone said, “especially the portraits and objects associated with the reign of Elizabeth I” and Byrd, her “most favored composer.”
Scott Metcalfe, director of the Blue Heron Renaissance Choir, will join the ensemble as violinist on Oct. 12, and the choir will return to campus next semester to work with students and to perform a concert in March.
The concerts are sponsored by the Institute for the Liberal Arts. For information, contact the Music Department at ext.2-6004 or via e-mail at concerts@bc.edu.