Motet

The motet has been defined by scholars in various ways, including by Margaret Bent as simply "a piece of music in several parts with words," a definition that applies from the Thirteenth Century onwards (Bent 1992: 114). It is generally used to refer to sacred choral works, usually of a polyphonic nature (Nosow 2012: 1), but later in the Renaissance Era, compositions became more varied in subject and style, as the motet transformed from its cantus firmus-based, isorhythmic origins to a more free and often secular genre. Despite these vast changes, as Robert Nosow points out, Motets almost exclusively used Latin text, which demonstrates that a degree of prestige has always been associated with the style (Nosow 2012: 84). The early renaissance…

In order to understand the concept of the motet, one must first be familiar the musical developments preceding the motet. Although the motet first appears in the 13th century, we can trace its ancestry back as far as the 9th century with the rising popularization of polyphony. Beginning in the Carolingian period (800-1000), composers began to take preference in writing polyphony which provided many opportunities to further explore the depth of musical texture. Early polyphonic music became known…

There are several differences between the texts of a motet and a madrigal; there are also a lot of similarities between them as well. A motet; in classical music, is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions. For a Renaissance Motet, the text is very religious; while its expressive style is moderately conservative. The main purpose was for worship; whereas its performance practice was extremely sophisticated, well-practiced, preached to a higher calling,…

Absalon fili mi is a Renaissance motet presumably composed by Josquin des Prez. It is a composition for four voices inspired on David’s lament over the death of his son Absalom. This motet contains religious subject because the poem is taken from the old testament of the Bible; however, it is not part of the liturgy. Departing from the tradition of the Medieval times, motets of the renaissance abandoned the use of the cantus firmus as a base of composition. Instead, all voices are…

which would not truly begin until philosophers such as Machiavelli, another Florentine, normalised resentment of the Church in the 1510s (Unger 2011:180), paving the way for some composers to distance themselves from the sacred origins of the motet. Towards…

Music can be traced all the way back to 500 B.C. when Pythagoras experimented with sounds and discovered tones can be formed from plucking strings. During the Middle Ages is when music began to be considered a gift from God. A common way to praise and worship our God was through music; this is how sacred music came about. Soon later, sacred music eventually was overcome by secular music, which is more along the lines of crusades, dancing, and love songs and less of the more religious and…

After the 24-hour fast, I discovered that I basically cannot live the life I live without mass media. Even after I turned off my phone for approximately 23 hours, I was still surrounded by media. Whether that was the pictures on the walls of my room, practicing choral music during a six and half hour rehearsal, drawing in my notebook, or taking a shower. In short, the only time I was actually fasting from media was the 10 hours I was sleeping. However, even then I could have been dreaming of…

L’homme armé Surviving today in music manuscripts of the late fifteenth century and beyond are more than thirty-five polyphonic Masses built on the popular tune of L’homme armé. Wright & Simms (2010) reported that composers borrowed this melody more often for religious purposes than any other piece of music. Pierce (2011) asserted that the composer of the original monophonic melody L’homme armé, while unknown, created the piece around the 10th century near Burgundy, east-central France and later…

title of the isorhythmic motet is “Felix virgo/ Inviolata genitrix/ Ad te suspiramus” and is composed by Guillaume de Machaut. The structure of this motet is an isorhythmic motet in that it is made up of two poems where the motet gets its lyrics. The translation of the motet title is “Happy Virgin/ Inviolate mother/ To you” in reference to the Virgin Mother Mary. The last words of the title “...Ad te suspiramus” is a song that was made to the Virgin Mary to come and give support and to help…

significance both historically and culturally on the motet genre. One of significance aspects of this piece is the voice range of triplum and motetus as well as how rhythmetrically complex it is. While not completely confined to that, the paper will discuss the characteristics of the motet as well as the implication of musical content and texture that Cruce used in his piece. The Rise of the Motet The motet was originally thought to have risen in the thirteenth century upon being influenced…