In July 1665, Pope Alexander VII issued an edict concerning the composition of music for the church. Surgamus, eamus was apparently composed before the issue of the edict and it can be pleasurably imagined that it was exactly the kind of piece that provoked the edict in the first place. First among the ten interesting points in the edict is that "The style of all church music should be serious and devout." Vague as this is, there is a sense of a fundamental contradiction of its spirit in virtually all of Carissimi's luxuriant motets. Carissimi's music and the concerts he directed at San Apollinaire were Europe-renowned for their splendor and beauty. It seems to be the only unmatched quality of the music itself (Carissimi has no equals among his contemporaries) that kept him out of hot water for what seems a flagrant privileging of music over religion. Surgamus, eamus, ostensibly a sacred motet, seems to revel in entirely worldly musical pleasures, it busts out with novel energy and profane joy. The text, despite its biblical source, hardly offers opportunity for edification of the devout. Except for the phrase "daughter of Zion," in the second to last line, it could easily be an entirely secular love/lust poem. The line "With joy, let us seek a bride/among the most beautiful virgins" is more typical of its contents and mood. An incorrigible word-painter, Carissimi evidently chose it because of its vivid diction. From the first entry of the voices, the melodic setting of every key word is appropriate to its meaning. He starts of with a rising motif on "surgamus/let us rise" and on "properemus/let us hurry," two vocal parts bumble together in a scribble of close imitative entries, clearly communicating the idea of haste. The use of a recurring refrain gives the motet a rondo-like structure. The motet also illustrates one of Carissimi's typical uses of the basso continuo, which in Surgamus, eamus alternately follows the tenor and the bass, only fleetingly, and fairly rarely, pushing away into moments of melodic independence. There's an imaginative facility in the way Carissimi approaches the use of all items in his store of devices, which recur in so many pieces without seeming overworked. Besides a boundless gift of melody—the mark of a great composer—a graceful levity and clarity of mind distinguish Carissimi as the genius of his time.

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