Creating the double motet anew

Abstract

The double motet flourished in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, culminating in thirteen masterworks — the isorhythmic motets of Guillaume Du Fay (c. 1400–1474). With the advent of the “early music movement” in the late twentieth century, Robert Kyr created the double motet anew through a variety of literary and musical techniques related to medieval practice, and in particular, to Du Fay's motets. In this article, he discusses various principles and techniques that are related to his creation of a postmodern double motet style: the writing of contrapuntal text; juxtaposition; synthesis; isorhythm; pan-isorhythm; inversion, and paradox.