The old man Simeon blessed Mary and Joseph at the temple; he spoke words of prophecy over their newborn Child, yet included the warning to Mary that, "A sword will pierce through your own soul" (Luke 2:33-35). In the fervor of late-medieval Marian devotion, this bitter promise became the first of Mary's "Seven Sorrows." For her child Jesus she would endure the flight to Egypt (Matt 2:13-15), separation from the boy as He taught in the Temple (Luke 2:41-50), the sight of Him carrying the cross, and being crucified (John 19:17-18), the experience of weeping over His dead body, and of placing Him in the tomb (Luke 23:55). Among the accretions to the Lenten liturgy, fifteenth-century Cologne instituted a special Feast in remembrance of the Seven Sorrows on the Saturday before Palm Sunday; a new confraternity dedicated to observing the Seven Sorrows received papal blessing in 1495 at the instigation of Philip the Fair, and Marguerite of Austria endowed a convent. In such a climate among his patrons, small wonder that Pierre de la Rue should compose at least one Mass of the Seven Sorrows.

Five lavish choir books from the Alamire workshop contain La Rue's five-voiced Mass of this title. Two feature poignant painted illuminations: Mary with seven swords piercing her body and dolorous Mary contemplating seven images. In the Tenor I voice of his Mass, La Rue borrows a series of plainchants newly composed for the Feast. The first Kyrie uses an excerpt which opens the morning Office of the Seven Sorrows (Dolores gloriosae), the Christe another Sorrows chant (Trenesa compassio, unidentified), and the rest of the Mass (with one exception) presents verses from the Sequence Salve virgo generosa, whose text relates the Seven Sorrows in order. The composer elegantly coordinates the borrowed texts and the Mass Ordinary texts, as if glossing one with the other: Christ carrying the cross and Him crucified intersect at the midpoint of the Credo (Crucifixus); the image of the Mother clasping the dead body of her Son (as in Michelangelo's Pietà) arrives in the Sanctus near the Elevation of the Corpus Christi; the entombment coincides with the final prayer to the slain Lamb of God.

Musically, La Rue maintains a delicate balance between commonplace and adventuresome writing. Much melodic material from the tenor cantus firmi he infuses into the other voices; a "headmotive" derived from the Dolores gloriosae melody (slightly varied each time) unifies the movement openings. He often breaks the fullness of texture with duo and trio passages. The harmonic writing occasionally lends some piquancy, both in sudden though momentary dissonances, and in frequent harmonic detours by means of flats in the bassus voice. Extraordinarily, he breaks all his own norms at the end of the Sanctus. As if evoking popular devotion at the Elevation of the Host, he writes a simple, nearly chordal Osanna II; the pattern of borrowed melodies also changes. Here his tenor quotes the final phrase of Josquin Desprez' famous Ave Maria: "O mother of God, remember me. Amen."

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