Tomás Luis de Victoria • Super flumina Babylonis

This psalm-motet by Tomás Luis de Victoria has a powerful and strinking effect. His polychoral music began to appear around the same time as that of Palestrina and Super flumina Babylonis is a polychoral work, although the bassus parts are not always treated in a spatial manner. The work is set for two choirs, with the 1585b edition set for SSAT/SATB.

The work was printed several times: 1576, 1583b, 1585b, 1589a, 1589b, 1600a and 1603. In the first edition (1576) the work is divided in four sections, with the middle two sections for one choir only. In the 1585 edition Victoria merged sections 2, 3 and 4, creating a secunda pars with no alterations to the musical text except for the end of what had been the third section.