This work for five voices depicts the birth of Christ, and Clemens' score demonstrates the composer's heightened concern for allowing the text to be heard clearly in the mid-sixteenth century. Rife with imitative counterpoint and clear phrasing, even those with the most basic command of Latin would be able to decipher the words at first hearing. This is in spite of enormous ornamentation, imitative counterpoint, and the many different techniques that a motet composer used. The reason that the motet fell in importance was because the succeeding madrigal form made the text more readily followed by listeners. Though Clemens remained a motet composer, these concerns, from which the madrigal was born, were effectively addressed in motets such as this one. Pastores loquebantur sounds as though the music were an accompaniment, written with a subordinate role in mind. There is nothing in the music that sounds like anything more than a setting for the words that gives them more resonance. It is even more impressive that the subtlety of this writing took place with five voices, which is more than the standard motet writer normally attempted to tackle concurrently. Clearly, Clemens understood the issue of text clarity, which gave rise to the madrigal, and addressed it without giving up his beloved motet form. The result is an exquisitely wrought work that addresses the desire for an emphasis on words, as it appeared in the mid-sixteenth century.

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