Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina may have been sharp in his personal business practices, and may have let fly his temper at times. Whatever his personal flaws, his Catholic faith probably was quite genuine; at the absolute least, he was a dutiful and conscientious servant of the Church. He composed over his lifetime literally hundreds of pieces for the Catholic liturgy, and apparently contributed to the reformation that was gripping the late sixteenth century Church by completely reorganizing the music in the Vatican basilica. He thus left the broadly defined Christian church worldwide a huge amount of music, written in his own style, which was so polished it became the model for centuries of "church music," and applicable to all the major celebrations of the Christian calendar. He set the Christmas text "Hodie Christus natus est" (On this day is Christ born) at least twice.

The four-voiced Hodie Christus natus est differs radically from the better-known eight-voiced version. Whereas the other version is extroverted in its musical gestures, deploying its choirs against one another for great effect, this piece is a little more intimate; whereas the other transpires quickly in bursts of harmony, here the composer takes a bit more care to expand upon his text. The opening gesture is homophonic, but almost so lost in reverent awe that he allows a hint of improper counterpoint. A quick triple-meter "alleluia" section interrupts. Returning to the rhythmic breadth of the opening, yet thinning the texture by one voice, the liturgical text continues, to be interrupted again by the interpolated "alleluia." A longer passage of liturgical text contains more imitative textures, more contrasts among the textures, and some hints of madrigalian writing: the imitative and almost self-consciously "musical" runs to evoke the singing of the angels, and the extended duet (almost a seventeenth century sound here) for the jubilation of the archangels. The exulting of the just people receives the most interesting textures, as antiphonal pairs of inner and outer voices contrast. The motet concludes as it almost began, with another interjection of the non-liturgical, but completely appropriate triple-meter "alleluia" section: the penitence of Advent is over, and the celebration begins.

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