oa ‘Aut propter devotionem, aut propter sonorositatem’: Compositional Design of Late Fifteenth-Century Elevation Motets in Perspective

The homophonic passages usually found in fifteenth-century motets to be sung at the culmination of the mass, the elevation, play a paradoxical role in modern scholarship. On the one hand, these passages serve to identify the liturgical function of the motets and the cycles surrounding them; on the other hand, they are hardly ever analyzed in detail, not only because their homophonic austerity seems to be of little interest, but also because they defy normal analytical procedures. To explain what happens when ‘nothing’ happens, this paper gathers a repertoire of contrapuntal-harmonic stock formulas distinguishable as clausulae, gymel, and tabula naturalis progressions. These progressions can be seen working in very different ways in elevation motets. To imagine composers with these polyphonic complexes at their disposal is to imagine theoretical and practical ways beyond a simple dichotomy between ‘counterpoint’ and ‘harmony’. In the discussion of elevation motets, questions of compositional design, of theoretical context, of performance, and of cultural context coalesce.