Motet

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

Renaissance motets

The name of the motet was preserved in the transition from medieval to Renaissance music, but the character of the composition was entirely changed. While it grew out of the medieval isorhythmic motet, the Renaissance composers of the motet generally abandoned the use of a repeated figure as a cantus firmus. Guillaume Dufay was a transitional figure; he wrote one of the last motets in the medieval, isorhythmic style, the Nuper rosarum flores which premiered in 1436 and was written to commemorate the completion of Filippo Brunelleschi's dome in the Cathedral of Florence. During this time, however, the use of canti firmi in works such as the parody mass tended to stretch the cantus firmus out to great lengths compared to the multivoice descant above it; this tended to obscure the rhythm supplied by the cantus firmus that is apparent in the medieval isorhythmic motet. The cascading, passing chords created by the interplay between multiple voices, and the absence of a strong or obvious beat, are the features that distinguish medieval and renaissance vocal styles.

Related Topics:
Renaissance music - Guillaume Dufay - 1436 - Filippo Brunelleschi - Dome - Cathedral - Florence - Parody mass

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Instead, the Renaissance motet is a short polyphonic musical setting in imitative counterpoint, for chorus, of a religious text not specifically connected to the liturgy of a given day, and therefore suitable for use in any service. The texts of antiphons were frequently used as motet texts. This is the sort of composition that is most familiarly named by the name of "motet," and the Renaissance period marked the flowering of the form.

Related Topics:
Polyphonic - Liturgy - Antiphon

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In essence, these motets were sacred madrigals. The relationship between the two forms is most obvious in the composers who concentrated on sacred music, especially Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, whose "motets" setting texts from the Canticum Canticorum, the Biblical "Song of Solomon," are among the most lush and madrigal-like of Palestrina's compositions, while his "madrigals" that set poems of Petrarch in praise of the Blessed Virgin Mary would not be out of place in church. The language of the text was the decisive feature: if it's Latin, it's a motet; if the vernacular, a madrigal. Religious compositions in vernacular languages were often called madrigali spirituali, "spiritual madrigals." Secular motets continued to be written; these motets typically set a Latin text in praise of a monarch or commemorating some public triumph; the themes of courtly love often found in the medieval secular motet were banished from the Renaissance motet. This was one of the pre-eminent forms of Renaissance music. Other important composers of Renaissance motets include:

Related Topics:
Madrigal - Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina - Canticum Canticorum - Biblical - Petrarch - Blessed Virgin Mary - Latin - Madrigali spirituali - Monarch - Courtly love - Renaissance music

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• Alexander Agricola
• Gilles Binchois
• Antoine Busnois
• William Byrd
• Loyset Compère
• Josquin Des Prez
• John Dunstable
• Antoine de Févin
• Francisco Guerrero
• Nicolas Gombert
• Heinrich Isaac
• Pierre de La Rue
• Orlando di Lasso
• Cristóbal de Morales
• Jean Mouton
• Jacob Obrecht
• Johannes Ockeghem
• Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
• Thomas Tallis
• John Taverner
• Tomás Luis de Victoria

In the latter part of the 16th century, Giovanni Gabrieli and other composers developed a new style, the polychoral motet, in which two or more choirs of singers (or instruments) alternated. This style of motet was sometimes called the Venetian motet to distinguish it from the Netherlands or Flemish motet written elsewhere.

Related Topics:
Giovanni Gabrieli - Polychoral - Choir

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