Motet

A polyphonic choral composition, usually sacred and based on a Latin text outside the Mass Ordinary. Its form and style changed substantially across musical periods.

Polyphony: Music in which two or more independent melodic lines sound together. The motet is defined by combining independently moving vocal parts.
Organum: Medieval polyphonic music that adds one or more voices to a pre-existing chant. The motet developed from practices associated with elaborating chant in organum.
Garrit gallus—In nova fert: A fourteenth-century isorhythmic motet attributed to Philippe de Vitry. Its layered texts and rhythmic design exemplify the medieval motet’s complexity.
Conductus: A medieval Latin song, often sacred, composed in note-against-note or measured polyphony. Unlike the motet, the conductus generally sets a newly composed text without a borrowed tenor.
Choral music: Music written for or performed by a group of singers. Motets belong to the choral repertory, though some use instruments or solo voices.
Notre-Dame school: A group of composers associated with polyphonic music at Paris’s Notre-Dame Cathedral around 1200. Its repertory includes the polyphonic settings from which the motet took shape.
Nuper rosarum flores: A motet composed by Guillaume Dufay for the 1436 consecration of Florence Cathedral. Its ceremonial occasion and measured design mark a major early Renaissance example.
Chanson: A French-language song tradition encompassing several secular vocal forms. Medieval motets often combine sacred and vernacular texts, unlike the chanson’s distinct song tradition.
Latin liturgy: The body of Christian worship rites historically conducted in Latin. Latin liturgical texts supplied much of the motet’s sacred repertory.
Leonin: A twelfth-century composer associated with the Notre-Dame school and early polyphonic music. The musical traditions linked to Leonin formed part of the motet’s prehistory.

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