Hyperion Records

This solo motet, with a text adapted and extended from the Communion for the Mass at dawn on Christmas Day, was published in 1629 in the Fourth Collection of Sacred Songs (Quarta raccolta de’ sacri canti) published by Lorenzo Calvi, by then choirmaster of Pavia Cathedral. It opens with music in the tuneful triple-time style of Venetian songs of the 1620s, and this opening music returns before the final ‘Alleluia’, which employs another song technique of the 1620s – the walking bass. These styles are contrasted with more declamatory and ornamented writing.

from notes by John Whenham © 2005