MUTH 6680 "Setting the Word: Composing Motets in the 16th-Century Style"
Graham H. Phipps
Spring 2006
Textbooks and other forms of secondary literature on the 16th-century motet have provided very little specific information about speech rhythms of the Latin motet texts and secular vernacular texts and the ways that they were captured in musical settings by major composers of the era. This study traces the compositional process from adaptation of text into musical line to the establishment of duet and trio textures to the completion of 4-, 5-, and 6- voice compositions. The usual concerns of contrapuntal study (melodic shapes, mode, consonance/dissonance, rhythmic figures, cadence patterns) will be included in this study, but always in relation to the words and their natural speech rhythms.
Based upon observations taken directly from motets by representative composers of the 16th century (Morales, Palestrina, Lassus, Andrea Gabrieli, and Hassler), members of the seminar will compose motets in 4, 5, and 6 voices. [N.B. The motets by A. Gabrieli have never appeared in a modern edition.]
As a secondary consideration, findings and observations found in scholarly treatises and current textbooks will be evaluated in relation to the compositional practice exemplified in works of the period.