AFFECTIVE AND SUCESSFUL MUSIC
Some of the most affective and successful motets of Tomás Luis de Victoria –Ardens est cor meum, Nigra sum sed formosa and O Domine Iesu Christe– and of his famous antiphons Salve Regina a 8 and Regina coeli a 8, were printed for the first time in 1576, in Venice. Although they were probably created in the magnificent post-Trent Rome of Gregorio XIII. The very active house Gardano took care of the edition, collecting this works in the Liber Primus qui Missas, Psalmos, Magnificat ad Virginem Dei Matrem Salutationes, alia que complectitur.
Eighteen of the compositions in the book are those included in the virtual volume we are presenting now, the second of the New Victoria Edition (NEV). The Tomás Luis de Victoria Study Centre dedicates it to the critical edition of the master’s work and makes it available in open format. The work has been carried out by María Elena Cuenca Rodríguez, winner of the Abvlensis scholarship, under the direction of Soterraña Aguirre-Rincón, headperson of the NEV. It follows, therefore, the objectives and procedures of edition declared in the first volume, which can be consulted here.
In order to reflect its content, the title (Psalmos, Magnificat, ad Virginem Dei Matrem Salutationes, alia que complectitur. Liber Primus (1576)), takes part of the same title that Victoria used in his own collection. It is a miscellany with a high Marian content, which reflects in a certain sense the biography of the author and, of course, the demand of “the market” and the spectators of the moment.
We hope you enjoy it.
SOTERRAÑA AGUIRRE RINCÓN
Responsible of the Edition
