The Motet around 1500: On Relationship of Imitation and Treatment? Edited by Thomas Schmidt-Beste; Centre d'etudes superieures de la Renaissance. (Collection Epitome Musical.). Turnhout: Brepols, 2012. [569 p. ISBN 9782503525662s. 100 [euro].] Music examples, illustrations, charts, diagrams, bibliographic references. The years ca. 1480-1520 witnessed an explosion in quantity and stylistic variety in motet production. Motets from this time period may have three to six voices; texts can be from Old Testament, New Testament, liturgical rites, books of hours, or newly composed sacred or humanistic (sometimes secular) poetry. There may be a cantus prius factus or no borrowed material; compositions may unfold as multiple parts or one continuous section; lengths range from petite utterances of twenty measures to monuments of 325 measures. Rigorous counterpoint, constructivist devices, canonic puzzles, simple homophony, and everything in between may be present; they may supplement liturgy, serve as domestic entertainment, or adorn civic ceremonies. The only constant about motet ca. 1500 is its Latin The Motet around 1500: On Relationship of Imitation and Treatment ? exhibits same variety as its subject matter. The collection contains twenty-five papers, revised and edited, from a conference held in spring, 2007 at Bangor University, Wales (six additional conference presentations were withheld for publication elsewhere). The conference and edited collection take their name from a question explored by Ludwig Finscher in 1979 concerning motet as locus for a newly emerging relationship between polyphonic composition and text sensitivity. Rubrics such as Text, Compositional Process, Composers, Repertoires, and Context and Meaning, organize contents, but many essays cross these artificial but necessary boundaries. Some essays take up ambiguously interrogative subtitle of book On Relationship of Imitation and Treatment? more directly than others, variously interpreting and text. For several authors, refers to contrapuntal techniques, with emerging as preferred term to distinguish contrapuntal imitation from imitation in sense of mimicking. Two particular articles intersect here. In Text Setting and Imitative Technique in Petrucci's First Five Motet Prints, Julie E. Cumming develops a system of categorizing textures (or techniques) that range from rigorously imitative to homorhythmic, then compares these categories with approaches to declamation (melismatic, syllabic, or syllabic lapsing into melismatic). The resulting matrix sheds light on question of whether textual matters (number of syllables, accent, spoken declamation) provoke melodic, rhythmic, and textural choices, or whether composers wrote counterpoint and added text later. Both scenarios undoubtedly prevailed for different compositions. While Cumming takes a broad reportorial approach, John Milsom, in des Prez and Combinative Impulse, places a single piece at center of his study, subjecting five-voice Virgo prudentissima to his brand of analysis. By forensic he means analysis geared toward reconstructing process of creating contrapuntal networks, particularly fuga and stretto fuga at various temporal and intervallic distances--whether in presence or absence of borrowed material. Milsom demonstrates that Josquin strategically places various formulations of fuga to serve phraseology and draw attention to key moments in Cumming's and Milsom's methodologies require close attention to small detail. Nevertheless both articles are lucid and free of jargon. Other authors interpret the relationship of imitation and text treatment in alternate yet equally relevant ways. For Stephen Rice (Reverse Accentuation), this concerns melodic and rhythmic contours that imitate (mimic) spoken declamation of text, which in turn elucidates performance practice. …