Unger M.P. Historical Dictionary of Choral Music
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for four voices and characterized by relatively dense polyphony);
and a half-dozen secular works.
MORAVIAN CHORAL TRADITION. The Moravian Church traces
its origins back to 15th-century Bohemia and Moravia, but it was not
established as a Protestant denomination until the 18th century, when
it found roots in Germany. From 1732 enthusiastic missionary activ-
ity spread the movement throughout the world. Resulting settlements
in North America included those in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (1741),
and Salem (now Winston-Salem), North Carolina (1766).
Hymn-singing had always played a central role in Moravian de-
votional and ecclesiastical life, and choral music developed naturally
from the practice. During the 18th century, thousands of anthems in
an early Classical style (with organ and orchestral accompaniment)
were written by Moravian composers in Europe and North America,
the most notable of whom were Christian Gregor (1723–1801), Jo-
hann Geisler (1729–1815), and Johann Freydt (1748–1807). Today a
significant Moravian legacy in the United States is the Bach Choir of
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and its annual Bach Festival. Established
in 1898, it is the oldest Bach festival in North America.
MORLEY, THOMAS (1557/58–EARLY OCTOBER 1602). English
composer, best remembered for his English madrigals and the trea-
tise A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke (1597).
He evidently studied with William Byrd, although specific details
are unknown. From 1583 until 1587 he was choirmaster and organ-
ist at Norwich Cathedral. By 1589, after completing a degree in mu-
sic at Oxford, he was organist at St. Paul’s Cathedral. From 1592 he
was a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. During this period of his life,
he lived in the same parish as William Shakespeare; nevertheless, a
connection between the two men has not been firmly established. In
1598 he received a patent to publish music and music paper, Byrd’s
license having expired two years earlier. From this point on he was
greatly involved with music publishing. His last publication was also
one of his most famous—The Triumphes of Oriana (1601), a collec-
tion of madrigals by 23 composers in honor of Queen Elizabeth.
Morley’s own works include weighty sacred pieces (on both Latin
and English texts): four Anglican services (including one short
service and one burial service), 17 anthems (of both verse and full
types), 7 English psalm settings, 14 Latin motets, and additional
312 • MORAVIAN CHORAL TRADITION
liturgical responses. However, he is best known for his more than
105 English canzonettas (for two to six voices) and madrigals (of
which some 23 were also issued in Italian versions). Indeed, he has
been called the “Father of the English Madrigal” not only because
of his own compositions, but because of his enormous influence
as an editor, translator, arranger, publisher, and promoter of Ital-
ian madrigals and their English equivalents. His own madrigals are
generally light in style, with little emphasis on word-painting. He
especially favored the strophic balletto style of Giovanni Gastoldi,
complete with refrains on nonsense syllables such as “fa-la-la.” Some
of his most famous works, which remain in the repertory to this day,
include Sing We and Chant It; Now Is the Month of Maying; Fyre,
Fyre!; I Love, Alas, I Love Thee; and My Bonnie Lass She Smileth.
MORMON TABERNACLE CHOIR. American choir affiliated with
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, named after its per-
manent home in the Mormon Tabernacle on Temple Square in Salt
Lake City, Utah. The choir was founded in 1847 at a general confer-
ence of the church. It received considerable impetus when a group
of some 85 Welsh Mormons arrived two years later, and their leader,
John Parry, was appointed conductor. A succession of short-term
conductors followed: Stephen H. Goddard, James Smithies, Charles
John Thomas, and Robert Sands. In 1869 George Careless, a pro-
fessionally trained musician from London, was appointed director.
Subsequent principal conductors have included the English-trained
Ebenezer Beesley (1880–89), Evan Stephens (1890–1916), Anthony
C. Lund (1916–35), J. Spencer Cornwall (1935–57), Richard P.
Condie (1957–74), Jay Welch (1974–75), Jerold Ottley (1975–99),
Craig Jessop (1999–2008), and Mack Wilberg (2008– ).
The choir of some 350 members sings for the weekly national
radio/television program, “Music and the Spoken Word,” and ap-
pears frequently at significant national occasions such as presidential
inaugurations.
MOTET. Although the meaning of the term has varied considerably
over time, it most commonly refers to a polyphonic vocal composi-
tion on a sacred (often Latin) text, with or without instruments. It
originated during the 13th century in the discant clausulae of Notre
Dame organum, which gained identity as independent pieces, and
whose upper line (originally chant melismas) was soon given words
MOTET • 313
(French: “mots”). Such pieces were called motets, and their newly
texted upper line, the motetus. At first the added words troped the
original Latin liturgical text; later, unrelated texts were used. Thus,
early motets consisted of a chant melody, carried by the tenor, and
one (eventually, even two) additional voices moving at a faster pace
(the third voice being called the triplum), each with its own text. The
texts could be sacred and/or secular, Latin and/or French, resulting
in polytextual, polylingual hybrids. (The term double motet is used
for works with two individually texted upper voices.) For the sake of
intelligibility, the chant tenors (which had lost connection with their
texts) and one or another of the vocal lines were perhaps played on
instruments. Rhythmic and textual differentiation among voices (the
triplum being the fastest) reached its peak in the works of Petrus de
Cruce (Pierre de la Croix, fl. c. 1290), the stratification aided by ad-
vances in rhythmic notation made by Franco of Cologne (fl. mid- to
late 13th century).
During the 14th century (the Ars Nova), innovations in rhythmic
notation documented by Philippe de Vitry allowed composers to
create complex rhythmic structures. Isorhythm was applied to the
tenors (by composers such as Guillaume de Machaut), and in the
following century, also to the other voices (by composers such as
John Dunstable and Guillaume Dufay). During the time of these
latter musicians, the motet’s association with the liturgy was re-
stored. Multiple texts fell into disuse and textures became simpler
and more homogenous. Isorhythm was abandoned.
After 1450 four-voice, contrapuntal texture became standard—
with a new contratenor or bass voice appearing below the chant-
carrying tenor, allowing for more triadic harmonic construction. The
most influential composer, by far, was Josquin des Prez. In his hands
the motet developed into the most important genre of the time. While
a few of his works (of which more than 100 survive) still relied on a
tenor cantus firmus for their structure (laid out in long notes), most
employed the technique of systemic imitation (especially between
voice pairs). Balancing inventiveness of construction with an (in-
creasing) emphasis on expressive text-setting, they greatly influenced
his peers and successors, who built on his work, establishing the clas-
sical polyphonic style (the stile antico). Important contemporaries
included Loyset Compère, Alexander Agricola, Heinrich Isaac,
Jacob Obrecht, and Jean Mouton.
314 • MOTET
The following generation cultivated the technique of pervading
imitation, giving each successive text phrase a point of imitation
that involved all the voices. Composers included Adrian Willaert,
Nicolas Gombert, Clemens non Papa, and Cristóbal de Morales,
among others.
By contrast, the Eton Choirbook (compiled just before 1500)
preserves monumental English works (mainly for five or six voices)
in free, nonimitative counterpoint. Later English composers of Latin
motets included John Taverner and Thomas Tallis; the latter’s 40-
voice Spem in alium is probably his most memorable work. Due to
Henry VIII’s break with the papacy and the subsequent dissolution
of Catholic musical institutions, the Latin motet in England gave way
to the vernacular anthem, although Latin works were still written
by William Byrd, who had been influenced by the Franco-Flemish
Philippe de Monte during the latter’s visit to England in the mid-
1550s.
During the High Renaissance, motet composition on the Continent
was dominated by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, who wrote
more than 300 of them (not counting offertories and other liturgical
pieces) in a controlled, conservative style, and Orlande de Lassus,
who wrote over 750 diverse motets of great expressiveness and
rhetorical impact. Also significant were Francisco Guerrero, who
wrote more than 100 motets, and Tomás Luis de Victoria, who pro-
duced some 55 works (not counting responsories and other motet-
like pieces). In these composers’ works, imitative textures generally
predominate, while homorhythmic passages provide contrast. Many
motets are for five or more voices. While composers in certain north-
ern Italian cities had experimented with polychoral textures as early
as the 1520s, polychoral motets with instruments were cultivated in
Venice after c. 1575 by Willaert, Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli,
Claudio Merulo, and Giovanni Croce, among others.
The liturgical function of motets to this point in the genre’s devel-
opment is not entirely clear. They evidently substituted for traditional
chants in the divine office, or were interpolated in the celebration of
the Mass, whether in churches, private chapels, or homes.
After 1600, while continuing to write motets in the old contra-
puntal style (though often with instrumental doublings), composers
turned increasingly to the new concerted and monodic styles then
in vogue, creating pieces for one or more voices, with continuo or
MOTET • 315
a small complement of independent instruments (usually strings), as
well as grand polychoral works with instruments. Often called con-
certed motets, sacred concertos, or sacred symphonies, such pieces
were cultivated in Italy by Claudio Monteverdi, and Alessandro
Grandi, among others. Inevitably, concerted style led to a section-
alization of the form. By the end of the 17th century, orchestrally
accompanied motets by Alessandro Scarlatti, Francesco Durante,
Leonardo Leo, and Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, and others, fea-
tured recitatives and da capo arias.
In France, composers were slow to adopt concertante elements.
One of the first to do so was Guillaume Bouzignac, whose approxi-
mately 100 motets were not widely disseminated. Later composers
produced increasingly sectionalized grand motets for solo voices,
chorus, and instruments; among the leaders were Henry Du Mont,
Pierre Robert, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Michel-Richard de Lalande,
and André Campra (all serving at the royal court), as well as by
Marc-Antoine Charpentier, François Couperin (unfortunately
lost), and Jean Philippe Rameau (only four works). For less ostenta-
tious occasions, composers also wrote petit motets for few voices and
instruments. This latter form of the motet was less encumbered by
tradition, and therefore incorporated more French and Italian operatic
features. The influence of the French motet carried over to England
after the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660, manifested
especially in the English verse anthem.
In Germany, the polychoral motet (with German text) flourished
briefly at the beginning of the 17th century in the hands of Michael
Praetorius, Heinrich Schütz, Johann Hermann Schein, Samuel
Scheidt, and others. German composers also continued writing mo-
tets in the older contrapuntal style, supporting the choral texture with
continuo and occasionally with doubling instruments. Some motets
were based on chorales, using the hymn stanzas for their texts and the
melodies as cantus firmi. The “Spruchmotette,” which set a German
scriptural text relating to the liturgical lesson of the day, continued to
be important. Some composers wrote whole cycles of such motets,
covering the entire liturgical year; among them were Melchior Vul-
pius, Christoph Demantius, and Melchior Franck. Madrigalian
elements are evident in motets by Schein, Schütz, and Leonhard
Lechner, among others. Of particular interest is a collection of com-
missioned settings of Psalm 116 by many of the leading motet com-
316 • MOTET
posers of the time, entitled Angst der Hellen und Friede der Seelen,
published in 1623 by Burkhard Grossmann. With the deprivations of
the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48), German composers turned to the
concerted motet for few voices. As in Italy, this type encouraged a
sectionalization of the form and the introduction of foreign elements
(aria, chorale, and eventually recitative), making the resulting works
more or less indistinguishable from early German church cantatas.
The choral motet proper continued to flourish in central Germany,
however, with contributions by Johann Pachelbel and members of
the Bach family—a tradition that culminated in the half-dozen works
by Johann Sebastian Bach. By that time the German motet had been
confined largely to special services such as weddings and funerals,
having been replaced in the liturgy by the cantata.
After the Baroque era (1750), the motet declined in importance.
As secular styles appeared less and less appropriate for church use,
composers lost interest in sacred music. What motets were produced
showed a retrospective orientation. Michael Haydn, Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart, Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Jo-
hannes Brahms, and Max Reger contributed to the genre (in Latin
or German, depending on their religious affiliation), as did compos-
ers inspired by the Cecilian movement, among them, Charles Gou-
nod, Franz Liszt, Anton Bruckner (whose 40 motets represent the
epitome of the Catholic motet in the 19th century), Camille Saint-
Saëns, and Gabriel Fauré.
Twentieth-century composers included Francis Poulenc and Ol-
ivier Messiaen in France, and Hugo Distler and Ernst Pepping in
Germany. Despite composers’ declining interest in the motet, choirs
associated with churches, schools, and civic organizations continued
to perform masterworks from earlier centuries in both religious and
concert settings.
MOUSSORGSKY, MODEST. See MUSSORGSKY, MODEST.
MOUTON, JEAN (BORN BEFORE 1459; DIED 30 OCTOBER
1522). Franco-Flemish composer. From 1483 he was maître de
chapelle at the church of Notre Dame, Nesle. Between 1494 and
1502 he held posts in Saint Omer, Amiens, and Grenoble. He then
entered the service of Anne of Brittany (wife of Louis XII), remain-
ing at the royal court for the rest of his life (under both Louis XII and
his successor, Francis I). One of his students was Adrian Willaert.
MOUTON, JEAN • 317
Mouton’s surviving works include some 15 masses (which include
cantus firmus, paraphrase, and parody types), about 100 motets,
some 9 Magnificats, and two dozen chansons. Most of his works are
for four voices, although some chansons for three, five, or six voices
exist. In style, his music is more uniform than that of Josquin des
Prez, an exact contemporary. Consisting of refined, serenely flow-
ing polyphony, it demonstrates contrapuntal mastery (especially
evident in the canonic works), a preference for full sonorities, and
relatively little concern for proper text accentuation. It was widely
admired, particularly also by Pope Leo X.
MOZART, LEOPOLD (14 NOVEMBER 1719–28 MAY 1787).
Composer, violinist, and theorist; father of Wolfgang Amadeus Mo-
zart. In 1743 he was appointed violinist in the court orchestra of the
prince-archbishop of Salzburg, where he advanced eventually to the
position of deputy Kapellmeister (from 1763). In 1756, the year of
Wolfgang’s birth, he published an influential textbook on violin play-
ing, Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule. After his son’s talent
became apparent, Leopold focused on promoting Wolfgang’s career.
Many of his own compositions are lost. Surviving works include a
half-dozen each of masses, litanies, and offertories, plus a few other
sacred pieces. Their style is generally dramatic, juxtaposing stile an-
tico counterpoint with Italianate arias.
MOZART, WOLFGANG AMADEUS (27 JANUARY 1756–5
DECEMBER 1791). Austrian composer. He was born in Salzburg,
which was then the capital of an independent archbishopric within
the Holy Roman Empire. A child prodigy who toured Europe, he
quickly assimilated the styles he encountered, while simultaneously
mastering traditional techniques of composition. As a result, he de-
veloped an unrivaled universality, while accommodating the tastes of
his audiences. He excelled in all genres.
When his father, Leopold Mozart, realized Wolfgang’s genius,
he determined to promote his son’s talents by means of a grand tour.
Leaving Salzburg in 1763, they traveled to Munich, Augsburg, Stutt-
gart, Mannheim, Mainz, Frankfurt, Brussels, and Paris (where they
stayed for the winter), then London (where they spent 15 months
and met Johann Christian Bach), then returned via The Hague,
Amsterdam, Paris, Lyon, and Switzerland, arriving back in Salzburg
in November 1766. Less than a year later, the family departed for Vi-
318 • MOZART, LEOPOLD
enna, where they spent much of the next 15 months, not arriving back
home until January 1769. In October of that year, Mozart received
the honorary appointment of Konzertmeister at the Salzburg court. In
December father and son commenced a highly successful, 15-month
tour to Italy, during which Wolfgang wrote an opera for Milan, and
received commissions for further dramatic works. As a result, more
trips to Italy followed, the second journey lasting from August until
December 1771, the third from October 1772 until March 1773. With
these trips the young Mozart established his command of the Italian
operatic style, while continuing to compose additional vocal and
instrumental works.
Thereafter, his days as a traveling prodigy were effectively over.
His long-suffering employer, the prince-archbishop Count Sigismund
von Schrattenbach, had died in 1771, right after Mozart’s return from
Italy. Schrattenbach’s successor, Hieronymus Colloredo (who had
taken Mozart into paid employment in August 1772) was not nearly
so accommodating, and his musical reforms were restrictive (though
not atypical for the time). These included shortening the Mass, limit-
ing the use of instruments in churches, and generally curtailing court
music. To further aggravate the situation, Colloredo favored Italian
musicians over local German ones.
While Mozart composed prolifically at first, his dissatisfaction
grew, coming to a head in the fall of 1777. Eager to seek a better po-
sition elsewhere, he asked for his release, whereupon both he and his
father were dismissed. Accompanied by his mother while his father
stayed in Salzburg, he spent the next 16 months seeking a post in
Munich, Mannheim, and Paris, but without success. Saddened by the
death of his mother (which had occurred while they were in Paris),
he returned in January 1779 to Salzburg, where his father had been
reappointed and had now secured a position for him as court organist.
Some fine works for the court followed, including two masses in C
major, the first of which would later be called the Coronation Mass
(K. 417). However, because Mozart was devoting considerably more
effort to projects outside the purview of the court, the archbishop
continued to regard him with disfavor.
In March 1781 Colloredo summoned Mozart (who was still in
Munich after the January premiere of his opera Idomeneo) to Ven-
ice, where the archbishop had set up temporary residence to attend
the celebrations surrounding the accession of Joseph II as emperor.
MOZART, WOLFGANG AMADEUS • 319
A series of snubs followed, causing Mozart to finally request his
discharge, which was granted in mid-1781.
Now an independent artist, Mozart soon established himself in Vi-
enna as a keyboard virtuoso. He married Constanze Weber in 1782,
and began the Mass in C minor. He played regularly at the home of
Baron Gottfried van Swieten, where the music of George Frideric
Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach was a staple of the repertory,
and for whom he transcribed several of J. S. Bach’s preludes and
fugues. (His interest in Bach’s music was renewed during a 1789 trip
to Leipzig, when he obtained a copy of the motet Singet dem Herrn
ein neues Lied). He also composed prolifically, producing much
outstanding instrumental music (including a dozen piano concertos)
and, above all, three comic operas, written in collaboration with the
librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte: Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and
Così fan tutte. During this time he evidently became a rival of An-
tonio Salieri, who served at the imperial court. However, there is no
evidence for the popular legend that Salieri poisoned Mozart.
Mozart’s final year saw the production of several significant com-
positions, among them, the opera Die Zauberflöte, some instrumental
works, and the Requiem. Commissioned anonymously by Count von
Walsegg-Stuppach, who planned to pass it off as his own work, the
Requiem was left incomplete at Mozart’s death. Finished portions
included the entire “Requiem aeternam,” the vocal and continuo
parts from the Kyrie to the “Confutatis,” and the first eight bars for
the vocal parts of the “Lacrimosa,” along with the first two measures
for the violins and viola. Eager to see the commission completed
because she needed to alleviate her financial situation, Constanza
Mozart approached Joseph Eybler, who provided some orchestra-
tion but declined to do more, then Franz Süssmayr, who finished it,
writing several movements himself, some of which may have been
based on Mozart’s sketches or instructions. Although criticized for
various shortcomings, this version is still the one most commonly
performed.
While Mozart’s choral music is secondary to his instrumental and
operatic output, it is nevertheless significant. Most of it was composed
to fulfill the duties of his position in Salzburg, and was evidently
influenced by the city’s church music traditions (as exemplified in
the works of Johann Eberlin). Mozart’s securely attributed choral
works include 8 masses, 8 missae breves, several Kyrie movements
320 • MOZART, WOLFGANG AMADEUS
(including a canonic setting for five soprano voices), 4 litanies, 2
Vespers, some vespers psalms, 2 complete oratorios and the first
part of another one (included here is the Italian Davide penitente, K.
469, which is based on the Kyrie and Gloria of the Mass in C minor,
with two additional arias composed in 1785), 3 cantatas (including
two Masonic works: Die Maurerfreude, K. 471, for T, TTB, 2 ob.,
cl., 2 hn., and str [1785]; and Laut verkünde unsre Freude, K. 623,
for 2 T, B, TTB, fl., 2 ob., 2 hn., and str [1791]), and some 15 short
sacred works, the most famous of which is the motet Ave verum cor-
pus, K. 618 (1791). Most of these works employ the popular Italian
style of the time, with orchestral accompaniment and operatic vocal
writing. Occasional fugues pay respect to tradition and demonstrate
Mozart’s command of contrapuntal technique. Some of his church
pieces were necessarily limited by Colloredo’s reforms, which (ac-
cording to a letter from Mozart to Padre Martini) specified that a
mass “with the whole Kyrie, the Gloria, the Credo, the Epistle sonata,
the Offertory or motet, the Sanctus, and the Agnus” should last no
more than three-quarters of an hour. Among his greatest choral works
are the Coronation Mass in C, K. 417, for S, A, T, B, SATB, 2 ob.,
2 hn., 2 tpt., timp., 2 vn., b., and org. (1779; evidently performed in
Prague for the 1792 coronation of Francis I, and perhaps also for
the 1791 coronation of his predecessor, Leopold II; the incomplete
Mass in C minor, K. 427, for 2S, SATB, fl., 2 ob., 2 bn., 2 hn., 2
tpt., 3 trbn., timp., str., and org. (1782); and the likewise incomplete
Requiem, K. 626, for S, A, T, B, SATB, 2 basset-hn., 2 bn., 2 tpt.,
timp., str., and bn. (1791).
MULHOLLAND, JAMES (7 MARCH 1935– ). American choral
composer. In 1964 he was appointed to the faculty of Butler Univer-
sity (Indianapolis). His many published choral works are prized for
their accessibility and overt lyricism, within the United States and
beyond.
MUNDY, JOHN (C. 1555–29 JUNE 1630). English composer, elder
son of William Mundy. Securely attributed works include a pub-
lished collection of 12 songs and 15 psalms for three to five voices
(London, 1594), approximately a half-dozen Latin motets, and as
many English anthems. Other works (particularly services and an-
thems) are ascribed simply to “Mundy,” and could be by either John
or his father.
MUNDY, JOHN • 321