(1) Musical composition, developed in the 13th century, in which words (French "mots") were added to fragments of Gregorian chant (2) 16th-century composition: four- or five-voiced sacred work, generally based on a Latin text
1 A short unaccompanied contrapuntal choral composition of the 13th - 15th centuries 2 A choral piece, usually unaccompanied, written in the 17th and 18th centuries
The liturgical counterpart of the madrigal A contrapuntal form of religious music originally for unaccompanied voices The form reached advanced stages of development with Palestrina, who wrote over 250 motets, and Johann Sebastian Bach
A genre of choral music with sacred words Motets have a long history as some of the earliest multi-part music in music history (from the 13th century), and have been used to describe a wide variety of pieces Some motets have been liturgical, some not; some motets have been accompanied, while some have been sung a cappella; some have been sung by large choruses, while others have been sung by small groups with one on a part Many motets have been sung in Latin, but some have been written in other languages The simplest way to think of motets, although a generalization, is of sacred non-liturgical choral music, contrasted with the liturgical choral music of the mass
a piece of music on a religious subject (mot ). Latin choral composition, generally in one movement. Its origins are in the 13th century, when words (French mots) began to be added to originally wordless polyphonic lines in settings of plainchant. It grew directly out of the clausula, a polyphonic decoration of a portion of organum, but it soon split off to become a separate composition, while retaining a meaningless fragment of chant text and melody in the tenor part. The upper texts often became a confusing mixture of sacred and secular and even anticlerical poems, indicating its intended performance in courtly as well as ecclesiastical settings. The motet was the most important musical genre of the 13th century and an essential vehicle for the development of polyphony. In the Renaissance, sacred motets, now employing a single text, were written by composers such as Josquin des Prez, Orlande de Lassus, and William Byrd, though it remains unclear how often they were performed in church settings. In the 17th-18th centuries, motets were written by Jean-Baptiste Lully, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Heinrich Schütz, and Johann Sebastian Bach. After 1750 the genre declined, and its distinguishing characteristics became diffuse