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Views from the Choir Loft

Sanctus & Benedictus • “Ave Maris Stella” (Victoria)

Jeff Ostrowski · June 5, 2018

UR PASTOR in the 1990s once said to me: “Jeff, I appreciate best those passages of Sacred Scripture with which I am most familiar.” Music is the same: we often most enjoy melodies that we’ve heard before, at least a few times. For this reason, great composers like Tomás Luis de Victoria (d. 1611)—who was a Catholic priest, just like Cristóbal de Morales—frequently based their Mass settings on tunes familiar to the congregation. However, the primary reason it was chosen to be sung at Symposium 2018 is its marvelous counterpoint.

Can you hear how he employs melodies from Ave Maris Stella hymn?

REHEARSAL VIDEOS for each individual voice and PDF score await you at #88751.

REHEARSAL VIDEOS for each individual voice and PDF score await you at #88749.

A FEW WEEKS AGO, we released the KYRIE from this Mass, and soon we’ll follow suit with the GLORIA. This Mass by Victoria was first published in 1576—meaning Fr. Victoria was still his twenties. The following is how Dr. Robert Stevenson, a great musicologist, compared Victoria’s setting to the Missa Ave Maris Stella of Fr. Morales:

ICTORIA—still in his twenties—shows none of the elder master’s adroitness at inventing original motifs that can recur as counterpoints to the plainsong hymn in such different movements as the “Patrem omnipotentem” and the “Et in Spiritum Sanctum”—or, over a still larger arch: in KYRIE I, the SANCTUS, and AGNUS DEI I. Morales’s great architectural gifts, displayed in this Mass and elsewhere, justly entitle him to comparison with Juan de Herrera; and it was just this talent that enabled him in his much longer Mass to unify disparate age-groups of masonry into a convincing and harmonious whole.

Victoria, who always chose to work on a smaller scale, did succeed, however, in leaving a much more genial and affable impression with his Mass. The very transposition of the hymn up a fourth throws the vocal quartet into lighter and brighter registers. His unwillingness to commit himself to any single technique, paraphrase or cantus firmus, also prevents his manner from ever becoming tedious. A comparison of the number of printed accidentals is not so conclusive as it may seem—Victoria having been the first Spanish composer to specify all, or nearly all, his required accidentals. But for what it’s worth, Victoria’s KYRIE movements contain eight or nine more accidentals than are to be found in the whole of Morales’s Mass. Above all, his harmonies can always be analyzed in a modern G-minor sense, whatever the key signature; whereas Morales’s harmonies, no matter how much ficta is applied, remain irretrievably modal in his Ave maris stella.

In conclusion, I must tell you a secret: Some readers won’t click those links above, and thereby forfeit the magnificent rehearsal videos for each individual voice. They’ll also avoid the special PDF scores which contain Solfège. This makes me sad.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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About Jeff Ostrowski

Jeff Ostrowski holds his B.M. in Music Theory from the University of Kansas (2004). He resides with his wife and children in Michigan. —(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    “What Martin Luther Said…”
    My pastor asked me to write little columns for the bulletin each week. The article for 20 July 2025 has been posted, and it’s called: “What Luther Said…” Martin Luther (an ex-priest and apostate) was an infamous heretic whose ignorance of JESUS CHRIST was only exceeded by his filthy and disgusting vulgarity.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Music List” • 15th in Ordinary Time (Year C)
    Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (13 July 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. As always, the Responsorial Psalm, Gospel Acclamation, and propers for this Sunday are also provided at the the feasts website.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)
    This coming Sunday—13 July 2025—is the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C). All the chants have been conveniently assembled and posted at the feasts website. The OFFERTORY, Ad Te Levávi, is particularly beautiful.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    Pope Pius XII Hymnal?
    Have you ever heard of the Pope Pius XII Hymnal? It’s a real book, published in the United States in 1959. Here’s a sample page so you can verify with your own eyes it existed.
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    “Hybrid” Chant Notation?
    Over the years, many have tried to ‘simplify’ plainsong notation. The O’Fallon Propers attempted to simplify the notation—but ended up making matters worse. Dr. Karl Weinmann tried to do the same in the time of Pope Saint Pius X by replacing each porrectus. You can examine a specimen from his edition and see whether you agree he complicated matters. In particular, look at what he did with éxsules fílii Hévae.
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    Antiphons Don’t Match?
    A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music). The “Graduale Parvum,” published by the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in 2023, mostly uses the Adalbert Propers—but sometimes uses the GRADUALE text: e.g. Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).
    —Corpus Christi Watershed

Random Quote

“We cannot approve of the attitude of those who use the problems raised and discussed by the Council to create in themselves and in others an attitude of unrest and a desire for radical reformation, as if the Council gives every private opinion a chance to destroy the heritage of the Church. acquired during Her many centuries of history and experience.”

— Pope Paul VI (30 June 1965)

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