Victoria's Requiem was written in memory of the Empress Maria, who dies in March 1603. It was published in 1605 and seems to have been the last work composed before his own death in 1611. Thus, the composer's description of this work as his 'swan song' was unhappily apt; it is a Requiem for both an Empress and a composer, and indeed for a style; the New Music of the seventeenth century was to render the polyphony of Victoria and his contemporaries old-fashioned. Previously, in 1583 and 1592, Victoria had published a less ambitions setting of the Requiem à 4, parts of which were incorporated in the 6-part version; this latter, however, is not merely a larger scale work, but explores a wider emotional gamut.