An example of polychoral techniques, it also epitomizes Baroque and Renaissance styles, with its use of hexachord-based harmonies, chromatic mediants, movement by fifths, pedal points and extended plagal cadences.
[1] Written while Gabrieli was first the organist at St Mark's Basilica as well as the organist at the Scuola di San Rocco, Venice, the music may have been designed to be performed for one of these institutions.
The individual groups of instrumentalists and singers would likely have been spatially separated, creating a polychoral, antiphonal texture.
Gabrieli's use of suspensions, consonant fourths, passing notes, and other forms of dissonance creates points of tension and excitement.
The work is usually scored in A minor but the lack of the G# outside of cadences gives the modal (Aeolian) tonality.