Who Has Experience with Victoria's Responsories?
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    I'm looking at these pieces by Victoria to sing on Good Friday (OF) and there are so many. You know how rehearsal time is. I'm thinking about picking 4 for singing during the Veneration. We might not get to all of them. I would like to pick the best of the pieces, 1 through 4, so that I don't waste rehearsal time and paper and attention spans. But truly I have no idea where to begin. Needs to be a good text and singable music that sounds right SATB.

    Any thoughts?
  • don roy
    Posts: 306
    Jeffry, i did a number of these as part of a tenebre service when i was in grad school. there all gems, somewhat exposed but on the whole very doable. there is a setting of the benedictus (alternating with chant) that was particularly effective if i remember.
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    So here is what I'm thinking based on text, parts, singability

    Aminus meus
    Eram Quasi Agnus
    Una hora
    Animam meam dilectam
    Caligaverunt Oculi mei

    any thoughts on the wisdom here? Unanticipated problems?
  • rich_enough
    Posts: 1,032
    If you have an SATB choir, many of the Victoria Tenebrae Responsories can be problematic in terms of the voice ranges. Even those marked "SATB" at CPDL often have awkwardly low alto and/or high tenor parts.

    I have found that Victoria's "other" O Vos Omnes (Feria Sexta in Parasceve) to be very effective for an SATB choir and easier to learn than many of the Tenebrae responsories. The tuning is less exposed and the voice ranges are also more forgiving - at least in those versions beginning on A, as for example the edition by Brian Marble.

    Be aware that this O Vos Omnes and the one from set of Tenebrae responsories are often confused. In fact, on CPDL the edition by Augustin Roche is actually the "Feria Sexta" piece, not the one from the Tenebrae responsories set.

    Other more doable ones include "Eram quasi agnus" and "Ecce quomodo moritur."

    Outside the Tenebrae set, Victoria's Vere languores nostros is another nice selection for Good Friday.
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,767
    Thanks for pointing that out, rich_enough! And let me remind everyone that it's pretty easy to become a CPDL editor and set things like this right, as I have tried to do in this case.
  • SamuelDorlaque
    Posts: 318
    I would second the motet "Vere languores nostros." It is accessible and powerful. Also, besides Victoria, I still love
    the "Tenebrae factae sunt" of Ingegneri and Pablo Casals' "O Vos Omnes." Monteverdi's "Adoramus te" is a good
    alternative setting of that text. We will sing the Monteverdi after Psalm 22 at communion.
    We still use the Palestrina or Victoria "Improperia" & "Pange lingua' with "Crux fidelis" for the Veneration of the
    Cross.
  • Mark P.
    Posts: 248
    Michael Haydn's "Tenebrae factae sunt" is quite dramatic in its neo-Renaissance way.
  • Michael O'Connor
    Posts: 1,637
    Jeffery, I put together a group to do these very responses in March. The big issue is ranges. Fortunately I have alto section of one woman and one countertenor. The pieces are not really difficult in regards to ensemble, but some of the resultant harmonies and melodic skips can be a challenge. We are also doing the "other" O vos omnes mentioned by rich_enough. The concert ends with a wonderful setting of Morales Victimae paschali laudes and starts with Victoria's Pueri hebraeorum. We are doing this more like a "lessons and carols" than a tenebrae service.
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