motet
motet
Old French
“The sacred choral form is named for a word — mot in Old French means word, and the motet was originally defined by its use of words, specifically by having a different text in each voice part simultaneously.”
Old French mot (word) gave motet — a diminutive form meaning 'little word' or 'motto.' The 13th-century motet was a specific polyphonic form: the tenor voice sang a slow-moving phrase (usually a Gregorian chant excerpt), while upper voices sang different texts simultaneously. The result was two or three texts being performed at once — a musical collage of words.
The 13th-century motet was the most intellectually complex music of its time. Composers at Notre Dame de Paris — Pérotin above all — developed polytextuality as a compositional technique. The upper voices in a motet might sing a sacred Latin text in one voice and a secular French text in another, simultaneously. The combination was neither random nor accidental; the texts were chosen to comment on each other.
By the Renaissance, the motet had simplified — one sacred Latin text, no longer polytextual — but had gained in harmonic sophistication. Josquin des Prez (1450-1521) wrote motets of extraordinary emotional depth; his Ave Maria is considered one of the great pieces of Renaissance music. Each generation redefined what a motet was while keeping the name.
The motet remained the prestige form for sacred choral music through Bach (whose 6 motets represent late Baroque perfection) into the 20th century. The word for a small word has accumulated four centuries of sacred choral tradition. Every choir that sings 'motet' is singing the diminutive of mot — the little word that became one of music's grandest forms.
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Today
The motet's 13th-century polytextuality was a radical experiment: two or three different texts sung simultaneously, the listener's ear forced to make meaning from collision rather than sequence. Medieval ears found this natural; modern listeners often find it cacophonous. The threshold of musical complexity shifts across centuries.
The little word — mot, motet — grew into the most serious form of sacred choral music. The diminutive became the prestige form. This is the opposite of what diminutives usually do. The small word became large; the sacred music kept the modest name.
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