About: Missa Tu es Petrus

Missa Tu es Petrus is a parody mass for six voices (SSATBB) by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina first printed in the Missarum, Liber 15 (1887) of Franz Xaver Haberl's edition. The eponymous model Tu es Petrus ("Thou art Peter") is one of three motets by Palestrina, all on the same text, intended “for the Feast of St. Paul and St. Peter” (29 June); the other two are for 5 and 7 voices. In fact there are three Missae Tu es Petrus, the less well-known being a six-voice paraphrase mass on the gregorian antiphon posthumously published in Missarum, Liber 12 (1601), and a polychoral mass for 18vv of doubtful authenticity that like the other parody mass adapts the music of the same 1572 motet to the texts of the Ordinary of the Mass.