For Christians, the journey from Palm Sunday to Easter constitutes the holiest week of the year. In the midst of the aesthetic onslaught being waged by Catholics against Protestants in the counter-reformation, Victoria made a mighty musical statement in his Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae (Office of Holy Week) of 1585, providing 37 settings of texts used in the intricate and richly symbolic rituals of that week. 

This collection continues to be one of Victoria’s most enduring creations; many of the works still being popular with today’s liturgical choirs. Jordi Savall came under the spell of this music as a boy chorister in his native Catalonia, and in a remarkable homage, he together with his vocal and instrumental forces performed and recorded the entire collection in a series of concerts at Salzburg’s Kolliegienkirche in July 2018.

In addition to preserving some of the chant that would have surrounded Victoria’s polyphony, Savall also decided to accommodate his consort of viols by interleaving instrumental transcriptions of some of the music, as well as providing varying levels of instrumental accompaniment for the vocal items. While,...