Beatus Laurentius

Luca Marenzio was a leading composer of madrigals in late 16th-century Italy, but also wrote sacred music. This motet, Beatus Laurentius, is for SATB choir and is sung in Latin. The text recounts the martyrdom of St Lawrence, who, when being burnt alive, famously told the tyrant that he was cooked and invited him to eat, adding that the Church's riches, which the tyrant sought, had been transferred to heavenly treasures by the hands of the poor. Marenzio's setting brings out the dramatic and heroic nature of the text, fitting for a sacred motet of the period.