Machaut's motets
Machaut was a major contributor to the motet as practiced in fourteenth-century France. This was a different genre than motets known to singers and listeners of sixteenth-century choral music. There all voices sing a single text, usually in Latin on a sacred subject, in a musical texture that usually emphasizes fundamentally equal voices. The medieval motet, as practiced by Machaut and his French contemporaries, rather is a piece for three or four soloists, often built on a fragment of chant. This rooting of the motet in preexisting material parallels the medieval focus on authority. Above this foundation are usually two upper voices, each with a different text. The result is something that may sound chaotic to modern ears but that in a sense represents in sound the kind of inaudible harmonies spoken of by ancient and medieval writers. (For more on the history of this genre, see my old essay in the Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies.)
(image of M1 from MS A from http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84490444/f850.image )
(image of M1 from MS A from http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84490444/f850.image )
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