Requiem Officium Defunctorum, 1605

Album by Tomás Luis de Victoria & Gabrieli Consort & Players & Paul McCreesh

Officium Defunctorum is a liturgical choral work (a setting of the Office for the Dead) by the Spanish Renaissance composer Tomás Luis de Victoria, published in 1605. The music exemplifies late Renaissance polyphony, employing modal harmonies, dense imitative counterpoint and sombre sonorities in the Roman Catholic liturgical tradition, and it is among Victoria's final liturgical works, reflecting the Counter-Reformation emphasis on expressive clarity in sacred music.