Tomás Luis de Victoria y la cultura musical en la España de Filipe III ed. by Alfonso de Vicente and Pilar Tomás (review)

As Alfonso de Vicente explains in his Introduction to this rich and wide-ranging collection of essays, the book is concerned with ‘two independent objects of study, with certain areas of intersection’ between them (p. 10). The first area of study is itself broad, encompassing musical and other aspects of Philip III’s court, music and ceremony in Valladolid (where the court was based for part of Philip’s reign), and the musical life of two monastic institutions closely connected to the court: El Escorial and the Descalzas Reales in Madrid. The second object of study is Tomás Luis de Victoria; herein the focus is not only—or indeed predominantly—on Victoria’s career and output in Madrid between the accession of Philip III in 1598 and the composer’s death in 1611. Rather, the issue pursued most widely in the chapters concerned with the composer is the extent of the dissemination of his music within the Iberian Peninsula and Spanish America.

Following a chapter by Emilio Ros-Fábregas on ‘music as a representation of power’, the book falls into two main sections, dealing respectively with the two ‘objects of study’ outlined above. Ros-Fábregas considers the symbolic meanings carried by L’homme armé masses (including those associated with the Spanish Habsburgs) and by Victoria’s Missa pro Victoria. In thus viewing Victoria’s mass in relation to the L’homme armé tradition, it is worth mentioning (in addition to the points that the author makes here) that Victoria incorporated part of the L’homme armé melody in the ‘Christe’ of his Missa pro Victoria.

Fernando Negredo del Cerro contributes a study of preaching—including court preaching—during the seventeenth century. Although neither Victoria nor music makes an appearance in this essay, the material encourages consideration of parallels and differences between the ideals, purposes, and methods of preachers and those of musicians in royal service. Luis Robledo Estaire traces Philip’s musical upbringing, and then considers the various aspects of his court’s musical provision. His thorough survey of court music and musicians draws richly on the available documentation and identifies the areas of musical overlap between departments of the household, such as the chapel and chamber. He points to aspects of change in the court’s musical practices—such as the introduction of the guitar and the cultivation of the viola da gamba—that might reflect Philip’s own training and tastes. Cristina Diego Pacheco focuses on the brief period (1601–6) during which Philip’s court was installed in Valladolid rather than Madrid. She provides an admirably broad and well-documented study of musical life in the city during these years, revealing the impact that the court’s presence had in that sphere. Gustavo Sánchez surveys evidence of the various types of musical activity—chant, vocal polyphony, and the use of instruments—at the great royal monastery of El Escorial during Philip’s reign. He brings to light some new material regarding the duties of the ‘corrector del canto’ within the performance of the liturgy, and considers the development of the monastery’s capilla polifónica and of its repertory, thus touching upon the lively debates concerning the degree to which polyphonic practice at the monastery under Philip’s father reflected constraints imposed by the king.

Victoria features little in the foregoing chapters, since he was not in the service of Philip III (although he dedicated his printed collection of 1600 to the king) and did not travel with the court to Valladolid. Rather, after his return from Rome in the mid-1580s he served as chaplain to Empress María of Austria in Madrid. María inhabited royal apartments attached to the convent of the Descalzas [End Page 337...