A motet is a piece of polyphonic choral music, usually without instrumental accompaniment, commonly associated with the Renaissance period of classical music. In general, motets used religious texts not used in the mass, since by this time, the mass already had standardized music. Though motets started being written in the late Medieval period, they developed greatly in and are most associated with the Renaissance period, which lasted from approximately 1450–1600.

 

The motet was based on the work of Léonin and Pérotin, two medieval French composers from the Notre Dame Church in Paris. Around the 1200s, they added multiple vocal parts to what was previously a single line of church chant. The motet was even more complex, with additional vocal parts being sung along with previously existing chant.

 

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. The Renaissance motet is also simpler, with more singable melodies, and is always in Latin and for odinary mass. Two important composers of Renaissance motet were Josquin des Prez and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina.

 

Isorhythmic

With reference to motets, isorhythmic means having a tenor line in which the rhythm, though not the pitch, is repeated many times.