Motet

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

There has been some debate as to the origin of the word. The two most likely candidates are the Latin word motus, which means “movement,” and the Old French word mot, meaning “word,” or “phrase.” Of the two, the Latin derivation is the more widely accepted.The motet was called the "motetus" by composers of the Middle Ages.^[1]The Medieval Latin for "motet" is "motectum", and the Italian mottetto was also used.^[2]

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." Grocheio was also one of the first scholars to define a motet. Grocheio believed that the motet was "not intended for the vulgar who do not understand its finer points and derive no pleasure from hearing it: it is meant for educated people and those who look for refinement in art."^[3]

[edit] Medieval motets

The motet of the thirteenth century is one of the hardest types of musical compositions for Westerners to appreciate.^[4] The motet emerged in the thirteenth century, derived from the organa tradition to which new words were added.^[5] The discovery that motets came from organa took place in 1898 through a man named Wilhelm Meyer.^[6] At first, the motet was less its own genre as much as it was a variant within an existing one.^[7] The motet arose from discant (clausula) sections in a longer sequence of organum, to which upper voices were added. The discant typically represented a strophic sequence in Latin, sung over a cantus firmus, which was a fragment of Gregorian chant.^[8] The motet took a definite rhythm from the words of the verse, and as such appeared as a brief rhythmic interlude in the middle of the longer, more chantlike organum. A very simple way to think of the motet is as an add-on to an add-on; in that, the motet is words added to a clausula, which in turn is an addition to a plainsong. When the clausula functions in this manner as a “harmonic addition,” it is then called a “trope.” One can therefore conceive of the musical result almost like a cupcake which has the plainsong as the cake; the clausula, or trope, as the icing; and the motet as the sprinkles.^[9] As the motet was used more and more, it began to take on specific characteristics, such as greater length and the use of texts in the vernacular, which separated it from other musical forms.^[10]

The motet was a link in the chain of the evolution of medieval sacred music.^[11] It is conjectured that northern France is the place where the motet first came into being, with significant development occurring in Italy as the motet spread into other European countries.^[12] The advent of the motet came specifically from some organa of the St. Martial School.^[13]The earlier motets bear the influence of the preceeding genre of organa, such as the work or the great organa composer Pérotin.^[14] Pérotin enjoyed great compositional success during the late 1100’s to early 1200’s.^[15] This idea of singing more than one text at the same idea became popular with composers of the Notre Dame and other schools.^[16] Eventually, motets came to have two or even three additional voices.^[17] An examination of various early motets seems to indicate that the conductus motets are “some of the earliest such works.”^[18] Motets are very similar to clausulae in many respects.^[19]However, there is some question as to whether motets and clausula were ever associated.^[20] There still seems to be much that can be learned from notation in clausulae.^[21]Double motets with rhythmical independence eventually became the standard.^[22]This was caused mainly by a prevailing interest in the two-part and double motet.^[23] Provincial works differed from those created in Paris.^[24] Motets of provincial France and other countries had a certain conservative element to them, in that Latin was chosen for use over French, and religious texts were preferred to secular texts.^[25]Motets took time to come into their own as a genre.^[26] It is not known for sure why motet composers decided to make rhythmic changes.^[27] Many times motets were modified to suit the tastes of differing generations.^[28] One of the reasons motets gained in popularity was the potential to use existing material from other medieval music.^[29] Eventually, there came to be differences in the ways motets were used in different countries.^[30] The invention of the motet contributed to the development of musical notation.^[31] The motet is considered to be one of the most popular forms of composition during the 15th and 16th centuries.^[32]

The practice of discant over a cantus firmus marked the beginnings of counterpoint in Western music. From these first motets arose a medieval tradition of secular motets. Secular motets were always intended for the highest members of society who were more cultured, both in listening and performing.^[33] Secular motets consisted of two or three part compositions in which several different texts, sometimes in different vernacular languages, were sung simultaneously over a Latin cantus firmus that once again was usually adapted from a passage of Gregorian chant. Mixing secular and sacred tunes was not considered wrong by medieval composers.^[34] In fact, poems were some early sources of text for motets.^[35] The French were the first to begin widely using texts from their own language in the composition of motets.^[36] Eventually, other countries in Europe also began to use their native tongues in addition to Latin for motet texts.^[37] It is suspected that, for the sake of intelligibility, in performance the cantus firmus and one or another of the vocal lines were performed on instruments.

Increasingly in the 14th and 15th centuries, motets tended to be isorhythmic; that is, they employed repeated rhythmic patterns in all voices—not just the cantus firmus—which did not necessarily coincide with repeating melodic patterns. Philippe de Vitry was one of the earliest composers to use this technique, and his work evidently had an influence on that of Guillaume de Machaut, one of the most famous named composers of late medieval motets.

[edit] Renaissance motets

Luca della Robbia: fragment from a choir. Museo dell'Opera del Duomo

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.^[38] Guillaume Dufay was a transitional figure in this regard; he wrote one of the last important motets in the medieval, isorhythmic style, Nuper rosarum flores (1436), which was written to commemorate the completion of Filippo Brunelleschi's dome in the Cathedral of Florence.^{[39] [40]} During this time, however, the use of cantus 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.^[41] This tended to obscure the rhythm supplied by the cantus firmus that had been 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 motet styles.

Instead, the Renaissance motet is a polyphonic musical setting, sometimes in imitative counterpoint, for chorus, of a Latin text, usually sacred, 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.

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.^[42] Religious compositions in vernacular languages were often called madrigali spirituali, "spiritual madrigals." Like their madrigal cousins, Renaissance motets developed in episodic format, with separate phrases of the source text being given independent melodic treatment and contrapuntal development; contrapuntal passages often alternate with monody.

Secular motets continued to be written however. These motets typically set a Latin text in praise of a monarch, commemorating some public triumph, or even praising music itself. Nevertheless, the themes of courtly love often found in the medieval secular motet were banished from the Renaissance motet. Many secular motets are known as "ceremonial motets" ^[43] Characteristic of ceremonial motets was a clarity of diction, for the audience was not presumed to be familiar already with the text (as would have been true with Latin hymns) and also a clear articulation of formal structure, for example a setting apart of successive portions of text with sharp contrasts of texture or rhythm. Adrian Willaert, Ludwig Senfl, and Cipriano de Rore were among the most prominent composers of ceremonial motets during the first half of the 16th century. ^[44]

The motet was one of the pre-eminent forms of Renaissance music. Other important composers of Renaissance motets include:

• Alexander Agricola
• Gregorio Allegri
• Gilles Binchois
• Antoine Busnois
• William Byrd
• Johannes Vodnianus Campanus
• Loyset Compère
• Josquin Des Prez
• John Dunstaple
• 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
• Martin Peerson
• 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. In addition to the appearance of antiphonal writing, these motets featured word painting, symbolic relationship between text and music, and occasional specification of instruments independent from the voice parts. An example of the late-Renaissance motet is O magnum mysterium, composed by Tomas Luis de Victoria in 1572.

[edit] Baroque motets

The name "motet" was preserved into Baroque music, especially in France, where the word was applied to petits motets, sacred choral compositions whose only accompaniment was a basso continuo; and grands motets, which included instruments up to and including a full orchestra. Jean-Baptiste Lully was an important composer of this sort of motet. Lully's motets often included parts for soloists as well as choirs; they were longer, including multiple movement in which different soloist, choral, or instrumental forces were employed. Lully's motets also continued the Renaissance tradition of semi-secular Latin motets in works such as Plaude Laetare Gallia, written to celebrate the baptism of King Louis XIV's son; its text by Pierre Perrin begins:

Plaude laetare Gallia

Rore caelesti rigantur lilia,

Sacro Delphinus fonte lavatur

Et christianus Christo dicatur.

(Rejoice and sing, France: the lily is bathed with heavenly dew. The Dauphin is bathed in the sacred font, and the Christian is dedicated to Christ.)

In Germany, too, pieces called motets were written in the new musical languages of the Baroque. Heinrich Schütz wrote many motets in a series of publications called Symphoniae sacrae, some in Latin and some in German.^[45]

Also during the Baroque period, the motet came to have a different meaning as a musical composition somewhere “between a cantata and an oratorio.”^[46]

Johann Sebastian Bach wrote seven surviving works he called motets; Bach's motets were relatively long pieces in German on sacred themes for choir and basso continuo. Bach's motets are:

• BWV 225 Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied (1726)
• BWV 226 Der Geist hilft unser Schwachheit auf (1729)
• BWV 227 Jesu, meine Freude (?)
• BWV 228 Fürchte dich nicht (?)
• BWV 229 Komm, Jesu, komm! (1730 ?)
• BWV 230 Lobet den Herrn alle Heiden (?)
• BWV 231 Sei Lob und Preis mit Ehren (?)

There is also a piece of a cantata that is classified as a motet.

• BWV 118 O Jesu Christ, meins Lebens Licht (1736-1737?)

[edit] The motet since Bach

Later 18th-century composers wrote few motets, although Mozart's well-known Ave verum corpus is in this genre.

In the 19th century German composers continued to write motets occasionally, notably Johannes Brahms (in German) and Anton Bruckner (in Latin). French composers of motets included Camille Saint-Saëns, César Franck and Francis Poulenc. Similar compositions in the English language are called anthems, but some later English composers, such as Charles Villiers Stanford, wrote motets in Latin. The majority of these compositions are a cappella, but some are accompanied by organ.

In the 20th century, composers of motets have often consciously imitated earlier styles. Examples include works by Maurice Durufle, Charles Villiers Stanford, Edmund Rubbra, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Hugo Distler, and Ernst Krenek.

[edit] Modern-Day Research and Records Regarding Motets to Facilitate Further Investigation

An important study regarding the origin of the motet was made in 1987 by Wolf Frobenius.^[47]

Motets were first grouped in small collections of a variety of styles.^[48] The largest collection of organal motets resides in the Biblioteca Mediceo-Laurenziana in Florence.^[49]

[edit] Sources

• Margaret Bent (1997). "The late-medieval motet", Companion to Medieval & Renaissance Music. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-816540-4.
• The Development of the motet
• Blanche Gangwere, Music History During the Renaissance Period, 1520–1550. Westport, Connecticut, Praeger Publishers. 2004.

[edit] Notes