The number of three-voice cantilena-style motets grew extensively during the 1430s and 1440s. In the 1450s their numbers declined as the four-voice motet achieved prominence: there are only six in the last two Trent Codices. I will therefore consider all the three-voice cantilena-style motets (early and late, English and continental) in this chapter.

The English cantilena: from Dunstaple and Power to Plummer and Frye

As a glance at Table 8.6 reveals, the English cantilena is far better represented than any other subgenre of the mid-fifteenth century (and this would be true even without the English section of Modena X.1.11, since most of its English cantilenas are concordant with TR+). In their catalog of English fifteenth-century sacred music Curtis and Wathey attempted a “rough chronological grouping,” with Band I including music “to the end of Dunstable's musical career,” and Band II including “music of the mid century, written by a subsequent generation of composers including Frye and Plummer.” In the case of anonymous works they presumably used style and manuscript dating as guides. I find the division helpful and revealing (see Table 9.1).

The earlier Band I group (Table 9.1.1, including music by Dunstaple, Power, Forest, and Piamor, as well as some anonymous pieces) is larger than the later Band II group (Table 9.1.2). Not only are there more Band I pieces (thirty-six) but most are found in multiple sources. Only ten are unica, and almost half are found in three or more manuscripts.

Bologna Q15's distinct motet section allowed us to examine the repertory of motets and sort the pieces into subgenres without having to worry too much about which pieces were motets. Having established the subgenres in Q15 it was then relatively easy to identify the motets in other contemporary manuscripts. Unfortunately, there is no comparable source for the mid-fifteenth century. While the last source in Table 7.1, Modena X.1.11 (c. 1448), has a distinct motet section, its continental subsection contains only eighteen motets, and it is a little too early for the new developments of the third quarter of the century. Sources for all genres are scarce during this period, and it is particularly hard to find manuscripts containing substantial numbers of motets.

The principal surviving manuscripts from mid-century for all genres are the Trent Codices, a group of seven manuscripts copied between c. 1430 and c. 1475 and now found in Trent, Italy. Fortunately, the Trent Codices contain more than 1800 compositions (counting Mass movements individually), an international repertory whose origins extend from England to Eastern Europe, from Holland to Naples, in a heterogeneous mix of genres and styles. While largely neglected for much of the twentieth century, the codices have received considerable scholarly attention in recent years.

The scribe of Bologna Q15 determined which pieces should go in the motet section. As we have seen, many different kinds of piece were considered by the scribe to be motets, and en masse they share few characteristics. By identifying the different subgenres, however, we have established kinds of motet that can be described and identified by means of characteristic features. Knowledge of the various subgenres thus allows us to recognize motets in other sources as well, even those without distinct motet sections. Comparison of the motets in Bologna Q15 with those found in other manuscripts of the period gives us a key to the whole motet repertory of the early fifteenth century. The comparison will also allow us to investigate the evolutionary success of the different subgenres. A subgenre (like a variety or species) can die out or it can survive and continue to evolve. Its fate is determined by the fates of the individual works that make up the subgenre: if they reproduce the subgenre will survive, if not it will die out. Reproduction, in the case of motets, takes two forms: a work can be copied in multiple manuscripts, or it can give rise to new works resembling it in various ways.

The first kind of reproduction (manuscript copies) is best observed in relation to individual works rather than subgenres. The second kind of reproduction (leading to production of new works) can be recognized by the continued presence of new examples of a subgenre in the repertory.

Before turning to a study of the repertory, we should consider what the term “motet” meant to people in the fifteenth century. The word “motet” is used in three different kinds of sources in the fifteenth century: treatises, archival documents, and music manuscripts. The treatises and archival documents virtually never mention fifteenth-century works that we can identify, and thus it is difficult to know exactly what kinds of pieces are meant by their use of the term “motet.” They do, however, help us to develop some sense of the term's associations and its relationship to other generic labels of the period. I know of two music manuscripts that use the term “motet”; they allow us to associate surviving compositions with the term, and to contrast the “motets” with works belonging to other genres. Manuscript usage of the term can also be supplemented with evidence from manuscripts that are organized by genre. Although the meaning of the term “motet” evades precise definition, the combined evidence from these three kinds of source allows us to make a fundamental distinction between the motet and the prescribed liturgical genres, and to establish a repertory of motets.

Treatises

The motet is frequently discussed in the music treatises of fourteenth-century France, where contemporary examples are often cited. These discussions are primarily concerned with the construction and rhythmic notation of what we now call the French isorhythmic motet.

In this chapter we will examine the four-voice motets without cantus firmus found in the earlier Trent Codices (TR+, 93, and 90), in Modena X.1.11, and in a few fragmentary sources. Most of these works are representatives of subgenres we have already examined (double-discantus motets, cut-circle motets, or English cantilenas); several are three-voice works to which a fourth voice was added later. The diverse approaches to four-voice texture found in these works are suggestive of a period of experimentation, and point to some of the ways in which the new four-voice textures of the second half of the century were created.

The end of the double-discantus texture

Two upper voices in the same range were standard for four-voice pieces on the Continent from c. 1415 to c. 1430; tenor and contratenor were also in the same range (with clefs a fifth lower than the upper parts). Virtually all of the four-voice motets in Q15, Du Fay's earlier isorhythmic motets, Brassart's four-voice motets, and many others use this double-discantus texture, which was a defining feature for continental motet-style compositions for three and four voices, both isorhythmic and free. Although it became less and less popular during the 1430s and 1440s, and essentially died out in the 1450s, the double-discantus subgenre continued to evolve during the period (see Table 11.1).

The motet in the fifteenth century poses problems of categorization, genre and history. What kind of a category is the motet in the fifteenth century? How can a genre have any communicative function when it is so amorphous? How can we explain its transformation over the course of the century? While searching for an approach or methodology that would allow me to deal with these problems, I read Alastair Fowler's useful discussion of literary genre theory, Kinds of Literature (1982). I was struck in particular by one passage:

“Yes!” I said – “that's just like the motet” – and I immediately adapted Fowler's passage to make it apply:

Fowler's quotation continues:

Many of the motets in Bologna Q15 (especially motets by northern composers working in Italy) are recognizably different from earlier local traditions. I call these new varieties of motet “new hybrid subgenres” – hybrids of the various older local traditions. Some of these new hybrid subgenres retain the texture of the medieval motet; others adopt the English cantilena texture. Although composers drew on their experience of other treble-dominated genres (such as the French chanson, the Italian lauda, or the Mass Ordinary movement), I believe that it was the popularity of the English cantilena and its absorption into the continental motet that spurred continental composers to embrace so enthusiastically the new texture for the motet. The result was an abundance of wonderful new music, as we shall see.

Most of the non-English cantilena-style motets in Bologna Q15 can be grouped into a subgenre that I call the “cut-circle motet” because of its use of a rhythmic style associated with the mensuration known as cut-circle (Ø) or tempus perfectum diminutum, although they do not all use this mensuration sign (see Table 5.1, pp. 110–11). Many of the cut-circle motets are also characterized by other features, such as melodic figures, florid melismas, fermata sections, and repeated-note figures in imitation. None of these features can be associated with every one of the cut-circle motets, making this a good case of a family resemblance category, in which the members are related in a variety of ways, and features occur in various combinations.