La tradición modal en la polifonía española del siglo XVI: la ortodoxia de Tomás Luis de Victoria y sus posibles raíces en las obras de Morales y Guerrero

The essay analyses, from the perspective of the ‘ostentation of modal orthodoxy’ that the authors have elaborated in a previous essay, the organisation of the sound space of four Victoria’s masses ad imitationem, two composed on his own motets (the Missa quarti toni on the motet Senex puerum portabat and the Missa O magnum mysterium on the motet with the same title) and two based on models of Iberian masters of the previous generations (the Missa Gaudeamus and the Missa Simile est regnum on motets respectively by Morales and Guerrero). The comparison with different authorial models such as those of Morales and Guerrero, besides further clarifying the framework of Victoria’s modal conception, allows the investigation about the relationship between this conception and that of the earlier Spanish polyphonic tradition. The new hypothesis that the article proposes is that Victoria derived his granitic modal orthodoxy from an equally ‘orthodox’ modal attitude very typical of Hispanic composers, and that this ‘Hispanic attitude’ always remained faithful to the traditional eight-mode system, despite Glarean’s innovations and his twelve modes.