Tenebrae Responsories

Tomás Luis de Victoria, author of the famous motet "O magnum mysterium," is known as the "Spanish Palestrina" for good reason: he is arguably the greatest of all Iberian composers. His highly expressive choral music, all of it to Latin texts, includes works ranging from exultant "Alleluias" to the plangently austere Holy Week settings Victoria published in 1585, from which the Responses on present disk are drawn. They are sung here with great intensity by the fourteen members of Ensemble Corund, directed by Stephen Smith, and recorded in the warm resonance of the historic St. Matthew's Church in Lucerne, Switzerland, where Ensemble Corund is based.