The Complete Motets 3

In 1564 the firm of Berg and Neuber in Nuremberg published a five-volume anthology of motets for from four to eight voices under the title Thesaurus musicus. The 229 motets in this collection represent composers from the time of Josquin Desprez up to that of Lasso. Seventeen motets by Lasso were published there for the first time, in addition to six others reprinted from his Antwerp motet book of 1556.

Most of the texts of Lasso's new motets in this volume are sacred, although one of them is a drinking song for two choirs that parodies the hymn, "Jam lucis orto sidere." The best known motet in the group is one of Lasso's noted chromatic pieces, the six-voice "Timor et tremor." The most curious piece is perhaps "Te decet hymnus Deus in Sion," the text of which heavily paraphrases Psalm 64.