01	Taedet animam meam	Tomas Luis de Victoria					03:55
	02	Introitus	Gregorian Chant					02:43
	03	Kyrie	Gregorian Chant					01:48
	04	Domine quando veneris	Giovanni Pierluigi Da Palestrina					05:41
	05	Graduale	Gregorian Chant					02:49
	06	Libera me Domine	Tomas Luis de Victoria					11:01
	07	Tractus	Gregorian Chant					02:40
	08	Ad Dominum cum tribularer clamavi	Giovanni Pierluigi Da Palestrina					05:26
	09	Sequentia	Neo-Gallican Chant					05:17
	10	Offertorium	Gregorian Chant					04:50
	11	Peccantem me quotidie	Tomas Luis de Victoria					05:00
	12	Sanctus - Benedictus	Gregorian Chant					01:09
	13	Heu mihi Domine	Giovanni Pierluigi Da Palestrina					06:59
	14	Agnus Dei	Gregorian Chant					01:09
	15	Communio	Gregorian Chant					01:23
	16	Libera me Domine	Giovanni Pierluigi Da Palestrina					13:22

The Hilliard Ensemble
In Paradisum, Music of Victoria and Palestrina

The Hilliard Ensemble
David James counter-tenor
John Potter tenor
Rogers Covey-Crump tenor
Gordon Jones baritone

Recorded September 1997
ECM New Series 1653

"In Paradisum" combines music from three sources: the Officium Defunctorum of Victoria, polyphony by Palestrina and Gregorian chant from a 17th century manuscript. Placing the work of the Spanish and Italian religious composers in a historically "authentic" context, the Hilliard Ensemble also give us a sense of the overwhelming musical experience that the Catholic Mass was at the time of the Renaissance.




After their enormous successes with Officium and Mnemosyne, the Hilliard Ensemble return to important source material including the Officium defunctorum of Victoria, and polyphony of Palestrina, as well as Gregorian chant from the Toul Graduale of 1610.

The music of Tomas Luis de Victoria and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina has been a cornerstone of the Hilliard Ensemble’s repertoire almost from the beginning of the group’s long history. In recent seasons they have frequently performed a programme they call “In Paradisum”, which incorporates motets by Victoria and Palestrina, framed by a roughly contemporary plainsong Requiem Mass. The antiphon “In Paradisum deducant te angeli” – may the angels conduct you to Paradise – gives the album its title, this being the sequence which concludes the Latin rite of the Roman Catholic liturgy for the dead, before the funeral procession leaves the church to escort the body to its final resting place.

Composer Ivan Moody, contributing to “In Paradisum” as an essayist, points out that while our awareness of the musical achievement of the great composers of liturgical polyphony has grown in this century, we have also lost our perspective of the fact that they were first and foremost men of the spirit (Palestrina’s social connections and more worldly ambitions notwithstanding) whose greatest works were written for the glory of God. Here, the Hilliard singers restore an appropriate sense of context, their performance reminding us that Palestrina and Victoria would have been closely in-volved with the plainsong and mass for daily offices; at the same time they are emphasising that the sung Catholic Mass was once also an extraordinary musical event. Nor were its musical forms immutable; this was a period when the traditions were in flux, “performance practise” in chant was changing, influenced by developments in polyphony.

Palestrina, born around 1525 in the town in the Sabine Hills outside Rome that gave him his name, was chapel master at the Capella Giulia at St Peters and the Julian Chapel, sang at the Sistine Chapel, and was a most prolific composer, the author of more than 104 masses and more than 375 motets, 68 offertories, at least 65 hymns, four or five sets of lamentations, and over 140 madrigals. His peda-gogical skills were also widely praised. Palestrina exerted a great influence as exemplar and teacher, and a network of younger composers was enormously indebted to him. The most gifted of these was, arguably, Victoria, “the first Iberian composer to master Palestrina’s style with its smooth symmetrical melodies and carefully-worked double counterpoint. Victoria departs from Palestrina, however, in his subtle harmonic shifts, extensive use of accidentals, and rhythmic intensity” (Mitchell Covington).

Twenty years younger than Palestrina, Victoria came from the Spanish town of Avila, birthplace of St Teresa. He studied at the cathedral there and, preparing to study for the priesthood, proceeded to Rome where he met and befriended Palestrina. Although he wrote much less than the older composer, less too than other important religious composers such as Lassus or Morales, he saw almost all of his works published in his lifetime. His work, very highly-regarded by his contemporaries, traveled far, was sung all over Europe and even in distant Mexico. Acclaim seems to have had little effect on Victoria’s introspective character; one of the most reclusive composers of his day, he was devoted to the contemplative life. Victoria wrote no secular music, nor did he court the affections of wealthy patrons. After major successes in Rome he returned to Spain to take up a position as chaplain at the Monasterio de la Descalzas de Santa Clara in Madrid and remained there for the last 25 years of his life.

Of the repertoire on the present disc, The Hilliard Ensemble’s Gordon Jones explains: “Of the four pieces by Palestrina included in this programme, three are settings of Responsory texts from either the Office for the Dead or the Burial Service. Two, Heu mihi Domine and Domine quando veneris are both from the Matins for the Dead and are set in two sections. The third, Libera me Domine, is the only one to retain its full responsorial structure. The plainsong Dum veneris acts as a response to the polyphonic verses, which are for three voices, and there is a repeat of the whole opening section at the end. To the Responsory proper Palestrina has added a setting of the Kyrie which would have been sung at this point in the service. The fourth piece, Ad Dominum cum tribularer clamavi, Psalm 119 (120), is set as a motet, in two sections. This psalm would have been sung at Vespers from the Office for the Dead.”