Peter Philips (c.1560-1628) was an English composer and organist who spent much of his life abroad. Like his compatriot Richard Dering (c.1580-1630) he lived and worked in the Low Countries on account of his Catholicism, then intolerable in their native England. He started life as a chorister of St Paul’s Cathedral, and left England in August 1582, eventually arriving at the English College in Rome via its counterpart in Douai. After the arrival in 1585 of Lord Thomas Paget, another Catholic refugee, Philips entered his retinue and visited Spain and France, settling later in Brussels. Philips remained there after the death of Paget in 1590, and started publishing his own compositions in the same decade. In 1593 he is thought to have visited the organist and composer Jan Pieterzoon Sweelinck, who proved to be an influence on the keyboard style of William Byrd. Philips’s output comprises both sacred and secular forms, and he is perhaps most famous for his two books of motets printed in 1612 (5vv) and 1613 (8vv).

Many of Philips’s sacred motets have a madrigalian flavour, and therefore bridge the gap between sacred and secular styles. Moreover, it is likely that these were intended as pieces for domestic recreation rather than for specific and exclusive use in church. This can also be said of the motet collections of Richard Dering (1617 and 1618) and Sweelinck (1619) which were issued by the same publisher. The 1612 volume by Philips contains music for feast days throughout the Church’s year, including some more general items in addition to the more specific motets. ‘Ascendit Deus’ for the Ascension of the Lord is a triumph of word-painting, utilising the common devices of the time. After the ascending opening phrase, the ear is particularly drawn to the arpeggio figures at ‘in voce tubae’ suggesting the fanfare of trumpets - see also the passage at ‘blow the trumpet in the new moon’ in Byrd’s ‘Sing joyfully’ for a close comparison. Although perhaps limited to performance on Ascension Day itself, the Sunday afterwards (traditionally in the Octave of Ascension prior to 1955) is very much in the afterglow of the feast day, as reflected in the readings and chants appointed for it.