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What is "motet"

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motet
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
motet
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Five masses and two motets survive.
▪ He transferred the technique to his petits motets, and then to his cantatas.
▪ Latin motets alongside modern crowd-pullers - which brings us back to hymn-singing, where we began.
▪ Mozart had become acquainted with the choirmaster there, Anton Stoll, for whom he wrote the exquisite motet Ave verum corpus.
▪ The motet was replaced by the two forms of anthem, the Mass by the Service.
▪ They are essentially wordless motets, each polyphonic section neatly dovetailed into the next.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Motet

Motet \Mo*tet"\, n. [F., a dim. of mot word; cf. It. mottetto, dim. of motto word, device. See Mot, Motto.] (Mus.) A composition adapted to sacred words in the elaborate polyphonic church style; an anthem.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
motet

"choral composition on a sacred text," late 14c., from Old French motet (13c.), diminutive of mot "word" (see mot).

Wiktionary
motet

n. A composition adapted to sacred words in the elaborate polyphonic church style; an anthem.

WordNet
motet

n. an unaccompanied choral composition with sacred lyrics; intended to be sung as part of a church service; originated in the 13th century

Wikipedia
Motet

In classical music, a motet is a highly varied choral musical composition. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music.

According to 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. 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."

Usage examples of "motet".

Ponceau des hommes et des femmes sauvages qui se combattaient et faisaient plusieurs contenances en chantant de petits motets et des bergerettes.

He was the author also of some motets, and Luca Marenzio, who brought the madrigal style to its most beautiful development and whose influence molded the methods of the English glee and madrigal writers, is believed to have been his pupil for a short time.

The texts of the motets were generally in prose, and the early polyphonists saw no obvious reason for imposing upon this essentially rectilinear material a circular musical form.

While Tintoretto and Veronese moved toward openness and the asymmetrical, the two Gabrielis moved, in their motets and their instrumental music, toward harmony, toward regular scansion and the closed form.

Matthew Passion, the John Passion, the Christmas Oratorio, the Magnificat, the Motets, and 25 of the Church Cantatas have been printed with English words.

Saint and some of his friends were brain-playing ancient flute motets on sheets of imipolex-with hints of heavy metal.

Above all they were the copyists of the choirmasters and made endless parts of the motets of Morales and Vittoria.

We go to the eleven o'clock solemn High Mass, with plain-song propers sung by the Ritual Choir (that's Darcy Dwyer's lot) and a missa brevis and motet sung by the Gallery Choir, which is like angels, if angels can sing, which I suppose they do.