A number of the singers who were at Carissimi's disposal throughout his working years at the church of San Apollinaire in Rome were among the stars of Italian opera. This fact heavily influenced his approach to composition and his motets, like his oratorios, glory in the splendor of the virtuoso voice. Ostensibly sacred, they tend to come across as rather secular. Carissimi is known to have occasionally directly adapted a secular cantata and to have simply put sacred words in place of the profane ones. It is almost suspected that he was a man "of the church," because that's where the most vigorous musical activity took place and that the crucial importance of San Apollinaire to him was as a choice concert hall. In fact, there were often a number of salarias, paid professional musicians (singers), employed at San Apollinaire whom Carissimi funded out of his own pockets just to keep the performance standards high. Qui est hic vir is set, for the most part, in a dainty duple meter, the melodic writing is handled in a fragrant arioso style. The voices are not relating in a true counterpoint and are often solo, or when together, fall quickly into parallel motion after an initial episode of imitation. Changes of meter, such as at the final passage, are mostly used to underline important structural points and to bring out other emotional potentials of the music. It's clear from all this that Carissimi's real interest was in the character of the solo voice. Even in the duet passages the two voices are used like a single instrument and made all the more brilliant for it. The rhythms of the lines are often in sixteenth notes, a rhythm that Carissimi frequently used to evoke joyous, celebratory states. The melodic lines are characterized by the fresh, almost spontaneous-sounding use of sequenced phrases, by many rising or falling fifths and a cornucopic abundance of melisma. The harmonic scheme is lucid and simple, being just a prop for the vocal lines. Although the text is a praise of St. Cassian, it seems hard to reconcile the image of that serious-minded sixth century monk with that of the operatic castrati, the flagrantly worldly kind of professional musician who would have been required to perform the alto part in Carissimi's day, the very same who was scolded for his "irreverent and unseemly behavior during services."

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