His settings of secular texts ranged from the light to the serious, and employ an array of contrapuntal devices, a characteristic more of secular music in northern Europe than in Italy. But the language of the settings is Italian for the madrigals and French for the chansons. Most of his music was published in Antwerp, although at least one collection of 30 songs ("napolitane") was published in Venice (1565). Waelrant was involved in efforts to compose music for contemporary Dutch-language lyrics. Together with Gregorius Trehou, Cornelis Verdonck and Andreas Pevernage he would have set lyrics of Jan van der Noot's "Lofsang van Braband" ("Hymn to Brabant", Antwerp, Gilles van den Rade, 1580) to music. This work is now lost.