This five-voice motet is a Marian (or Votive) antiphon, celebrating the Virgin Mary, and is indicative of the demands for new artistic and emotional clarity in the beginning of the sixteenth century. It is in four parts and suits a performance of four parts with an instrumentalist playing on a sackbut or trombone. Each part is somewhat different, but always displaying a tendency to head toward the same emotional feel, sometimes more grand (bordering on haughty) and other times more personably affectionate. The final result is a rounding out of the single feeling of devotional love for the subject. After the first part, the next two parts of the texts move on to praise the Holy Ghost and Jesus Christ. The final part refers back to Mary, beseeching Her to pray for the performers, who obviously speak for a congregation, making the motet a fascinating example of the Catholic approach to faith in early Renaissance Europe. The many ways in which the composer gets this manifold job done also display his clearly cosmopolitan outlook as a successful, international composer. Issac—Flemish by birth—had most likely written this motet while working in Austria. His training and his career took him all over Europe. The result was music that was celebrated by all nations and this work is one example of how his music was vigorously sought out.

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