The setting for double choir of
Fratres ego enim accepi by Palestrina, a text commemorating the Last Supper was sung at Mass on Maundy Thursday at Vila Viçosa as Offertory. Palestrina’s motet is typical of the grand Roman polychoral style of the post-Tridentine era which had a profound effect on later Iberian composers of the counter-Reformation period. João IV had a keen interest in the music of Palestrina and, in defiance of earlier criticisms, defended his music in his treatise
Respuestas (1654?).
from notes by Bernadette Nelson © 1996
;)
