The work was commissioned by Jordi Savall for a peace concert in Barcelona on 1 July 2004.

[1] Pärt began the composition two days after the 2004 Madrid train bombings, in memory of the victims.

Vernier noted "an almost complete subordination of rhythmic influence and the relegation of melody to a more or less implied presence".

A review in The New York Times mentioned the composer's "temporal rootlessness" and continued: On the surface these are slow-moving, meditative scores.

“Da Pacem Domine” (2004), a prayer for peace, is cast in sustained tones with little harmonic growth and hardly any momentum, yet a listener is drawn inexorably into its hypnotic four-part unaccompanied vocal texture.