What does motet mean in music?
Motet, (French mot: “word”), style of vocal composition that has undergone numerous transformations through many centuries. Typically, it is a Latin religious choral composition, yet it can be a secular composition or a work for soloist(s) and instrumental accompaniment, in any language, with or without a choir.
What motet means?
polyphonic choral composition
What is the difference between motet and madrigal?
Madrigals were usually love songs. Motet A motet is a polyphonic work with four or five voice parts singing one religious text. They are similar to madrigals, but with an important difference: motets are religious works, while madrigals are usually love songs. Mass A musical mass is like a motet, only longer.
What are the characteristics of a motet?
Characteristics of the Renaissance Motet Compared to the medieval motet, the Renaissance motet is smoother and uses imitative polyphony, with successive voice parts that echo each other, kind of like a round. We can see and hear this in the text and successive adding of vocal parts.
What are the two main types of sacred music?
Two main forms of sacred music existed. Firstly, the motet; a short, polyphonic, choral work set to a sacred Latin text. The motet was performed as a short religious ritual such as the communion. Secondly the Mass; a longer work, comprised of all five movements of the Ordinary.
How many voices are in a motet?
three voices
What is Discant Clausula?
The clausula (Latin for “little close” or “little conclusion”; plural clausulae) was a newly composed section of discant (“note against note”) inserted into a pre-existing setting of organum. They occur as melismatic figures based on a single word or syllable within an organum.
Who invented motet?
Hans Leo Hassler composed motets such as Dixit Maria, on which he also based a mass composition. The motet began in the early 13th century as an application of a new text (i.e., “word”) to older music. Specifically, the text was added to the wordless upper-voice parts of descant clausulae.
What are the voices in a motet labeled?
A polyphonic vocal style of composition. The medieval motet is a polyphonic genre which originated in the thirteenth century in which the upper voice or voices are texted (usually syllabically) and the bottom voice, the tenor, is untexted. …
How is a motet named?
Motet names consist of the first words of each voice in order from top to bottom voices. Thus, motets have names such as “Plus bele que flor / Quant revient / L’autrier joer / Flos Filius” — since there are four very independent texts, in different languages, for four different musical voices and lines.
What does polyphony mean in music?
Polyphony, in music, the simultaneous combination of two or more tones or melodic lines (the term derives from the Greek word for “many sounds”).
When did madrigals appear?
Madrigal, form of vocal chamber music that originated in northern Italy during the 14th century, declined and all but disappeared in the 15th, flourished anew in the 16th, and ultimately achieved international status in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
What does fa la la mean in madrigals?
In madrigals, fa la la la las were code for something dirty that wasn’t polite to say out loud. Normally it involves the young hero and heroine and a secluded meadow with tall grass.
Are the madrigals still sung today?
Nowadays, madrigals are often sung by high school or college madrigal choirs often as an after-dinner entertainment. Sometimes the singers wear Renaissance costumes.
What kind of period is madrigal?
A madrigal is a secular vocal music composition of the Renaissance (15th–16th c.) and early Baroque (1600–1750) eras.
What is an example of Madrigal?
A good example of an Italian madrigal is entitled Il dolce e bianco cigno, or The White and Gentle Swan by the composer Jacques Arcadelt, Madrigals were usually set to short love poems written for four to six voices, sometimes sung with accompaniment, but in our modern performances they are almost always a cappella.
What era is classical music?
The dates of the classical period in Western music are generally accepted as being between about 1750 and 1820.