Shortly after returning to his native Spain from a twenty-year sojourn in Rome, Tomás Luis de Victoria, personal chaplain to the Dowager Empress María, published his second book of masses (1592), dedicated to the Empress' son, Cardinal Albert. The volume contains a series of masses} intended to serve each season of the liturgical year, plus a four-voice requiem}. The mass, presumably for the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, on his own six-voiced Song of Songs motet Vidi speciosam (Victoria wrote no less than four masses based on his motets from the Song of Songs!), like many of these "middle period" masses, is marked by loose but imaginative treatment of his model composition, and great conciseness in general. This mass, written for the same six voices as the motet (SSATTB), also shares with its model a certain shimmering texture of overlapping high voices and a high level of harmonic coloration.

The Kyrie I borrows almost exactly the opening of the motet, with its alternating vocal trios (though their order is reversed); the only other blatant appearance of this music, however, is at the beginning of Sanctus. Christe and Kyrie II rework, in four and six voices, other clear sections of the motet. The wordy movements Gloria and Credo both involve much "telescoping" of text, such that overlapping groups of voices sing successive phrases of text. No voice contains the entire text. The music in these terse movements mingles free composition and subtle reworkings of shorter harmonic and motivic fragments from the model. Much of the drama comes from textural shifts (especially the lengthy section at "Crucifixus" set for only the highest four voices) and from harmonic surprises (for instance, the progression which colors "ex Maria virgine," and the striking reiteration of "et iterum" which uses music from the model at "et lilia, et lila"). Only one Agnus Dei movement, with the concluding text "dona nobis pacem," concludes the setting. It bears little formal resemblance to the model composition, but rather spins its long-breathed lines in echo of the sonic world of the rest of the Mass. It also adds a level of sonic richness through a canon, deriving a seventh voice in the middle of the texture from the uppermost.

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