Palestrina as "savior of church music" is really but a charming fable, though the man did have an immense impact on the Catholic church music after the Council of Trent. Between 1563 and 1593, he published no fewer than 11 books of motets, four of which present complete liturgical collections. Apparently, these collections reflect a complete overhaul of the music at the basilica of San Pietro in the 1570s and 1580s. The five-voiced Assumpta est Maria, upon which motet he also composed an imitation Mass, appeared in his magisterial 1593 collection of Offertories. This massive printed anthology consists of 68 motets, including Offertory texts for 40 of the most prominent feasts throughout the church year, and 28 for the Sundays through the long summer season of Pentecost. In this publication, he left the Christian music world a series of exceptionally high-quality, topical, and for Catholics, liturgically correct, motets with which to celebrate the entire holiday calendar.

The text "Assumpta est Maria," as might be expected, serves the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin (August 15), and it celebrates the mystical act of the raising of Mary's body into heaven. For Catholic Marian devotion, it is the highest feast of the year. This specific text occurs during the Offertory of the Mass, as the Eucharistic table is being laid. Though Palestrina does not embed the actual Gregorian chant melody Assumpta est Maria into the motet, he reflects both the overall exultant tone of the feast and the general predilection of the Assumpta est Maria chant to use rising melodies. The very opening imitative motive yields an excellent example: it begins with an upward leap, the melody continues upwards (contrary to Palestrina's usual practice of melodic compensation), and it concludes with an extended melisma upwards through an entire octave on the words "into heaven." The composer returns to exultant rising melismas on the verb for "praise," and intensifies this second imitation by syncopation and very close intervals between the voices. Further evidence of close text-painting (Palestrina also wrote many Italian madrigals, of course) appears in the trumpet-like repeated pitches in the top voice as the text describes the angels, a sudden harmonic shift as they "bless the Lord," and the almost dance-like skipping quality of the concluding "Alleluia." And he accomplishes all these musical inventions in the midst of characteristically pristine counterpoint.

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