In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the preeminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to the English musicologist Margaret Bent, "a piece of music in several parts with words" is as precise a definition of the motet as will serve from the 13th to the late 16th century and beyond.Margaret Bent, " The Late-Medieval Motet" in Companion to Medieval & Renaissance Music, edited by Tess Knighton and David Fallows, 114–19 (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1992): 114. . The late 13th-century theorist Johannes de Grocheo believed that the motet was "not to be celebrated in the presence of common people, because they do not notice its subtlety, nor are they delighted in hearing it, but in the presence of the educated and of those who are seeking out subtleties in the arts".Johannes de Grocheio, Ars Musice, edited and translated by Constant J. Mews, John N. Crossley, Catherine Jeffreys, Leigh McKinnon, and Carol J. Williams; TEAMS Varia (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2011): 85 section. (cloth); (pbk).
The texts of upper voices include subjects as diverse as courtly love odes, pastoral encounters with shepherdesses, political attacks, and many Christian devotions, especially to the Virgin Mary. In many cases, the texts of the upper voices are related to the themes of the chant passage they elaborate on, even in cases where the upper voices are secular in content. Most medieval motets are anonymous compositions and significantly re-use music and text. They are transmitted in a number of contexts, and were most popular in northern France. The largest surviving collection is in the Montpellier Codex.
Increasingly in the 14th and 15th centuries, motets made use of repetitive patterns often termed isorhythm; that is, they employed repeated rhythmic patterns in all voices—not only 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.
Motet frequently used the texts of and the Renaissance period marked the flowering of the form. The Renaissance motet is polyphony, sometimes with an imitative counterpoint, for a chorus singing a Latin and usually sacred text. It is not connected to a specific liturgy, making it suitable for any service.
Motets were sacred madrigals and the language of the text was decisive: Latin for a motet and the vernacular for a madrigal.The Hilliard Ensemble, Palestrina: Canticum canticorum, Motets Book IV; Spiritual madrigals (Virgin Classics, 1994; sound recording liner notes) The relationship between the forms is clearest in composers of sacred music, such as Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, whose "motets" setting texts from the Canticum Canticorum are among the most lush and madrigal-like, while his madrigals using Petrarch's poems could be performed in a church. Religious compositions in vernacular languages were often called madrigali spirituali, "spiritual madrigals". These Renaissance motets developed in episodic format with separate phrases of the text given independent melodic treatment and contrapuntal development.
Secular motets, known as "ceremonial motets",Blanche Gangwere, Music History During the Renaissance Period, 1520–1550 (Westport, CT, Praeger Publishers: 2004), pp. 451–54. typically set a Latin text to praise a monarch, music or commemorate a triumph. The theme of courtly love, often found in the medieval secular motet, was banished from the Renaissance motet. Ceremonial motets are characterised by clear articulation of formal structure and by clear diction, because the texts would be novel for the audience. Adrian Willaert, Ludwig Senfl, and Cipriano de Rore are prominent composers of ceremonial motets from the first half of the 16th century.
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 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. "If Ye Love Me" by Thomas Tallis serves the demand of the Church of England for English texts, and a focus on understanding the words, beginning in homophony.
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 France, Pierre Robert (24 grands motets), Henri Dumont (grands & petits motets), Marc-Antoine Charpentier (206 different types of motets), Michel-Richard de La Lande (70 grands motets), Henri Desmarets (20 grands motets), François Couperin (motets lost), Nicolas Bernier, André Campra, Charles-Hubert Gervais (42 grands motets), Louis-Nicolas Clérambault, François Giroust (70 grands motets) were also important composers. In Germany, too, pieces called motets were written in the new musical languages of the Baroque. Heinrich Schütz wrote many motets in series of publications, for example three books of Symphoniae sacrae, some in Latin and some in German. Hans Leo Hassler composed motets such as Dixit Maria, on which he also based a mass composition.
The funeral cantata O Jesu Christ, meins Lebens Licht, BWV 118 (1736–37?) is regarded as a motet, though it has independent instrumental parts. The motet Sei Lob und Preis mit Ehren, BWV 231 is an arrangement of a movement from Bach's Cantata 28, and the authenticity of the arrangement is not certain. For a few more motets, such as Ich lasse dich nicht, BWV Anh 159, Bach's authorship is debated.
In the 19th century, some German composers continued to write motets. Felix Mendelssohn composed Jauchzet dem Herrn, alle Welt, Denn er hat seinen Engeln befohlen and Mitten wir im Leben sind. Johannes Brahms composed three motets on biblical verses, Fest- und Gedenksprüche. Josef Rheinberger composed Abendlied. Anton Bruckner composed about 40 motets, mainly in Latin, including Locus iste. French composers of motets include Camille Saint-Saëns and César Franck. In English similar compositions are called . Some later English composers, such as Charles Villiers Stanford, wrote motets in Latin. Most of these compositions are a cappella and some, such as Edward Elgar's three motets Op. 2, are accompanied by organ.
In the 20th century, composers of motets have often consciously imitated earlier styles. In 1920, Ralph Vaughan Williams composed O clap your hands, a setting of verses from Psalm 47 for a four-part choir, organ, brass, and percussion, called a motet. Carl Nielsen set in Tre Motetter three verses from different psalms as motets, first performed in 1930. Francis Poulenc set several Latin texts as motets, first Quatre motets pour un temps de pénitence (1938). Maurice Duruflé composed Quatre Motets sur des thèmes grégoriens in 1960, and Notre Père in 1977. Other examples include works by Richard Strauss, Charles Villiers Stanford, Edmund Rubbra, Lennox Berkeley, Morten Lauridsen, Edward Elgar, Hugo Distler, F. Melius Christiansen, Ernst Krenek, Michael Finnissy, Karl Jenkins 19 motets for mixed voices a cappella. Boosey & Hawkes 2014, . and Igor Stravinsky.
Arvo Pärt has composed motets, including Da pacem Domine in 2006, Da pacem Domine (2006). In: Cantica nova. Zeitgenössische Chormusik für den Gottesdienst. Choirbook of the ACV, Regensburg/Passau 2012, , as have Dave Soldier (Motet: Harmonies of the World, with rules from Johannes Kepler), Sven-David Sandström, Kammerchor Hannover "Bach vs. Sandström" (2014) Verband Deutscher Konzertchöre. Enjott Schneider, Gott hat uns nicht gegeben (2007) and Komm, Heiliger Geist (2002). In: Cantica nova. Zeitgenössische Chormusik für den Gottesdienst. Choirbook of the ACV, Regensburg/Passau 2012, . Ludger Stühlmeyer Veni Creator Spiritus (2012), motet for choir SATB. In: Cantica nova. Zeitgenössische Chormusik für den Gottesdienst. Choirbook of the ACV, Regensburg/Passau 2012, . With Hearts Renewed (2017), motet for choir and instruments. Dedicatet to the Westminster Cathedral Choir of London. Hymn (2017), motet for choir a cappella SSAATTBB, lyrics from a poem by Edgar Allan Poe. Dedicated to Matthias Grünert, the cantor of the Frauenkirche Dresden. and Pierre Pincemaille.Three motets (Pater Noster; Ave Maria; Ave Verum), published with A coeur joie editions: Website of A coeur joie editions
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