Entertainment Music "Alma Redemptoris Mater" Lyrics and Translation Music by Palestrina Print Palestrina. Print Collector /Getty Images Music Classical Music Lyrics Basics Operas Rock Music Pop Music Alternative Music Country Music Folk Music Rap & Hip Hop Rhythm & Blues World Music Punk Music Heavy Metal Jazz Latin Music Oldies Learn More By Aaron Green Aaron Green Music Expert B.A., Classical Music and Opera, Westminster Choir College of Rider University Aaron M. Green is an expert on classical music and music history, with more than 10 years of both solo and ensemble performance experience. Learn about our Editorial Process Updated on 03/25/17 This liturgical work composed by Renaissance composer, Palestrina, is is an extremely melodic and fluid choral work composed in the late 1500s with a libretto written nearly 500 years before that. Because of its content, the work is often performed during Advent and Epiphany, when the Catholic church ponders and meditates on the mysteries of Blessed Mary and her virgin birth. Latin Lyrics Alma Redemptoris Mater, quae pervia caeliPorta manes, et stella maris, succurre cadenti,Surgere qui curat, populo: tu quae genuisti,Natura mirante, tuum sanctum GenitoremVirgo prius ac posterius, Gabrielis ab oreSumens illud Ave, peccatorum miserere. English Translation Sweet Mother of the Redeemer, the passage to the heavens,the gate of the spirits of the dead, and the star of the sea, aid the falling.Mother of Him who cares for the people: you who brought forththe wonder of Nature, your Creator.Virgin before and after, who received of Gabrielwith joyful greeting, have pity on us sinners.