MOTTETTO. – In its primary meaning, the term m. (motetus, moctetus) designates the vocal part superimposed on the tenor in medieval polyphony. It subsequently denotes the composition itself, which in the thirteenth century is for two or three voices (tenor, motetus, triplum), more rarely for four (in that case the discantus is placed above the triplum). The tenor performs the cantus firmus, subjected, with the necessary prolongations and displacements of notes, to the theory of the six rhythmic modes (series of trochees, iambs, dactyls, anapaests, spondees, tribrachs). The various voices have different texts. The agreement of the parts themselves is, naturally, very different from that codified by the theorists of classical art; it admits, for example, parallel successions of seconds and likewise of fifths. Here the concept of the independence of the parts and of their contrasting movement within a harmonious and richly varied whole reaches maturity, producing that exquisite wonder which belongs to all golden ages and, in this particular case, to the already advanced golden age of polyphony.
These qualities were further developed in the fourteenth century, leading to rapid figurations, the stammering interruptions of the Ochetus, the collaboration with instruments that characterizes the ars nova, and the technical particularities emerging in Filippo da Vitry and Guglielmo Machault; but they also led, in the sacred genre, to those drawbacks
and abuses against which the Church rose up (the constitution Docta sanctorum of Giovanni XXII, 1324). Subsequently, with the abandonment of the practice of multiple texts and the adoption of a single text for all the voices, the m. became part of the finest liturgical and extraliturgical production. Its history, therefore, is incorporated into that of Franco-Flemish polyphony: it follows its periods through the masters of the first generation (Dufay, Binchois), then of the second (Bunois, Okehem), and of the third (Obrecht, Iosquin, to mention only some of the best known); and with them it evolves, gradually acquiring a more effective rhythmic homogeneity among the voices and greater stylistic coherence, while tending toward a balance between verticality and horizontality, homophony and multilinearity, lyricism and thematic writing, strophic structure and the expansive principle of contrapuntal variation. These balances and merits were fully attained when the m. entered into the heart of the classical era. Technically, the m. is based on the division and exploitation of a Gregorian melody, so that a polyphonic episode is derived from each fragment of II. The leading polyphonists of the sixteenth century favored this form and made use of II. Palestrina, in addition to the six books of m., for four and eight voices, in which he had given ample demonstration of the extreme possibilities of this form in the purely choral field, and the two books of spiritual madrigals, as well as the other two books of secular madrigals and the offertories, composed the heavenly motet cycle for five voices on texts from the Cantico dei cantici (“ex canticis Salomonis”), selected for their elevated prophetic significance. Alongside Palestrina it is right to recall the finest masters of vocal polyphony, from Animuccia to the two Anerio brothers, from O. di Lasso and Victoria to Giovannelli. The m., surviving the golden age of sacred polyphony, was also cultivated in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the “a cappella” style was no longer a creative necessity but had become a tradition and was rapidly falling into academicism. Nevertheless, in the seventeenth century, benefiting from the tendencies established with the advent of accompanied monody and opera (and consequently also from the new functions assumed by the accompanying instruments and the expressive possibilities arising from their growing prominence), the m. evolved toward the form known as “concertante”: it adopted the “basso continuo,” was adorned with descriptive devices, and unfolded in solo passages sometimes not without difficulty, becoming an interpreter of the world of human passions, not always veiled by sacred motives. After T. L. Grossi da Viadana, Monteverdi (in the Sacri concentus appended to the Messa a 6 voci per la B. V. M., published in 1610) achieved a brilliant and highly personal synthesis of the old and new styles: “the gravity of ancient polyphony combined with the inventions of opera” (A. Pirro).