Orlando di Lasso is a well-known name as composer of motets, madrigals, Masses, Magnificats, chansons, and German lieder. Somehow he seems to have been largely overlooked as a composer of polychoral music. Perhaps he has been overshadowed by the brilliant compositions of the Venetian school from Willaert through Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli and Monteverdi. Lasso composed, however, a significant number of polychoral works including thirty eight Latin motets for from eight to twelve voices, with both sacred and secular texts; seven Italian madrigals for from eight to ten voices; five French chansons for eight voices;
and a German polyphonic lied for eight voices. In addition he also wrote polychoral Masses and Magnificats, although they are not included in the “Si imtliclze Werke” “one Mass for double choir which has so far appeared in the “Nelle Reilze” and another, the “ Missa sllper Oscllletllr” which is available in a performing edition from Barenreiter Ausgabe BA 4396.
Lasso appears to utilize the double choir medium in order to gain greater variety of color and texture, to enhance contrasts inherent in a given text, to present a dialogue (often humorous), or to exploit echo effects. He did not seem to be particularly interested in the “stereophonic” effect of widely separated choirs; at any rate in most of the tutti sections he is not careful to make each choir harmonically complete, in contrast to the normal practice of the Venetian school.
John Howell says