Motet

The motet is the central polyphonic choral form of Western sacred music: a setting of a Latin text (occasionally secular or vernacular) for several independent voice parts, usually unaccompanied. Born in the thirteenth century when words were added to the upper voices of Notre Dame clausulae (the motetus part that gave the form its name), it became the proving ground of successive techniques: *Machaut*'s isorhythmic constructions, Franco-Flemish imitative counterpoint in *Josquin* and *Lassus*, *Tallis*'s forty-part "Spem in alium", and the concerted motets of *Bach*, whose six works BWV 225–230 crown the tradition.