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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