Alma redemptoris mater is a text of considerable antiquity and appears in several thirteenth-century motets. In the Roman liturgy it is an antiphon of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which is sung during Advent and until the Feast of the Purification. Palestrina made three settings of this text, a
paribus vocibus setting for four high voices, which was included in his second book of four-part motets published in Venice in 1596, and two eight-part settings, which were not issued in printed editions in Palestrina’s lifetime. These were later transcribed by Haberl in the nineteenth century from manuscripts then in the archives of the Cappella Giulia and of the Collegium Romanum.
from notes by Jon Dixon © 2003
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English