New Video Release: Pange Lingua
In anticipation of our 2021-22 Season, we are releasing a new recording every other Friday for your enjoyment. Today we present Pange Lingua, composed by Tomás Luis de Victoria and recorded in May 2021 at Comber Hall, Church of the Little Flower in Coral Gables, FL. Find out more about the composition below:
When Tomás Luis de Victoria was born in Avila, Spain, in 1548, Charles V ruled Spain as Holy Roman Emperor. Spain’s influence was at its apex, and Charles V, lover of the arts, kept a musical establishment that would rival any through time. The Capilla Flamenca, recognized as the 16th-century world’s greatest choir, was in residence at Charles V’s Spanish court, and the institution employed the greatest composers of the age. None of those composers, however, was Spanish. Tradition had kept the Capilla Flamenca populated solely by those of Franco-Flemish heritage.
It was in this atmosphere that a young Victoria would make his way to Rome to seek his future in music, coming under the influence of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, whose style Victoria would emulate, and whose position as preeminent Catholic composer Victoria would succeed. Victoria’s Pange Lingua setting, one of two, this one on the tune used in procession in Spain, is a simple yet brilliant set of theme and variations on a gorgeous, lilting melody. Here the Seraphic Fire soprani intone the tune a cappella and unadorned, followed by successively more intense and passionate choral verses.
Pange Lingua
Pange lingua “more hispano” Pange lingua gloriosi Novis datus, nobis natus In supremae nocte coenae Verbum caro, panem verum, Tantum ergo sacramentum Genitori Genitoque |
Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548–1611) Sing, O tongue, Born for us, given to us, In the night of that supreme feast, With a word, the Word made Let us venerate the Sacrament To the Father and his Son |