Motet

In Western music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions.

Related Topics:
Western music - Choral

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The name comes either from the Latin movere, ("to move") or a Latinized version of Old French mot, "word" or "verbal utterance." The Mediaeval Latin for "motet" is "motectum". If from the Latin, the name describes the movement of the different voices against one another.

Related Topics:
Latin - Old French

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According to Margaret Bent (1997), "'a piece of music in several parts with words' is as precise a definition of the motet as will serve from the thirteenth to the late sixteenth century and beyond. This is actually very close to one of the earliest descriptions we have, that of the late thirteenth-century theorist Johannes de Grocheio."

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