Themotet-chanson was a specializedmusical form of theRenaissance, developed inMilan during the 1470s and 1480s, which combined aspects of the contemporarymotet andchanson.

Many consisted of three voice parts, with the lowest voice, atenor or acontra, singing a sacred text in Latin, drawn fromchant, while the two upper voices sang a secular text in French. Some were written for four to five voices, with thebassus taking the Latin part.^[1] Generally, the French text was either a commentary on the Latin text or had some symbolic relation to it.^[2] The lowest voice served as acantus firmus, and usually sang in long notes, with phrases separated by long rests, while the upper voices, singing more quickly, followed the rigid formal structure of the contemporaryformes fixes, particularly therondeau and thebergerette.

The three most prominent composers of motet-chansons wereJosquin des Prez,Loyset Compère, andAlexander Agricola, all of whom were in Milan, Italy, during the late 15th century as part of the progressive and opulent musical establishment of theSforza family. Other composers who wrote motet-chansons includedJohannes Prioris andJohannes Martini. Of these, only Prioris is not known to have been in Milan, but then relatively little is known about his life.

Josquin wrote three motet-chansons: "Que vous madame/In pace", "A la mort/Monstra te esse matrem", and "Fortune destrange plummaige/Pauper sum ego". "Que vous madame" had circulated widely by 1490; it was one of the earliest of Josquin's compositions to do so.^[3] Two of Agricola's motet-chansons, "L'eure est venue/Circundederunt" and "Revenez tous regretz/Quis det ut veniat", are preserved in manuscripts of the chanson albums ofMargaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy, as are two of Compère's, "Plaine d'ennuy/Anima mea" and "O devotz cocurs/O vos omnes".^[1]

It has been inferred that the motet-chanson repertory may once have been much larger than is now known, since many of the surviving sources give only the Latin text for three-voice compositions of otherwise similar texture. It may be that the uppermost voices for some of these once had secular French words, now lost.^[4]

• Richard Sherr, ed.,The Josquin Companion. Oxford, Oxford Univ. Press, 2000.ISBN 0-19-816335-5
• Gustave Reese,Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954.ISBN 0-393-09530-4
• Gustave Reese (biography) andJeremy Noble (works), "Josquin Desprez," Howard Mayer Brown, "Chanson", inThe New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980.ISBN 1-56159-174-2

• Renaissance music
• Classical music styles
• Choral music genres