Best Motet

The motets BWV 225-230 are six choral works traditionally grouped under Johann Sebastian Bach's name, although the authenticity of BWV 230 has been questioned. The collection includes Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, Der Geist hilft unser Schwachheit auf, Jesu, meine Freude, Fürchte dich nicht, Komm...

Ave Maria... virgo serena is a four-voice Latin motet by Josquin des Prez, probably composed during the late fifteenth century. Its text addresses the Virgin Mary through a sequence of salutations associated with her major feasts, followed by a personal prayer. The music moves between imitative entr...

Thomas Tallis's Spem in alium is a Latin motet for forty independent voices, arranged as eight choirs of five parts each. Probably composed in the late sixteenth century, it sets a prayer adapted from the Book of Judith. The music passes material among separate choirs, builds large antiphonal exchan...

Sicut cervus is a four-voice Latin motet by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, first published in the sixteenth century. Its text begins Psalm 42 in the Vulgate, comparing the soul's longing for God to a deer seeking flowing water. Written for unaccompanied choir, the piece uses balanced imitation, c...

Ave verum corpus, K. 618, is a short sacred motet by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for mixed choir, strings, and organ. Mozart composed it in June 1791 for Anton Stoll, a church musician in Baden near Vienna, in connection with the feast of Corpus Christi. The Latin Eucharistic text meditates on the body...

O magnum mysterium is a four-voice Latin motet by the Spanish Renaissance composer Tomás Luis de Victoria, published in Rome in 1572. Its responsory text reflects on the mystery of animals witnessing the newborn Christ and includes an "Alleluia," making the work appropriate for the Christmas season....

Josquin des Prez was a prominent Flemish composer of the Renaissance period. He is recognized for his innovative use of polyphony, particularly within masses and motets. His complex vocal textures demonstrated exceptional skill and significantly influenced musical development during this era. Josqui...

Lux Aeterna is an unaccompanied choral work composed by György Ligeti in 1966 for a mixed choir divided into 16 independent vocal parts. It sets the Latin communion text from the Requiem Mass and uses micropolyphony, in which closely interwoven lines create slowly changing fields of sound rather tha...

Nesciens mater is a Latin motet by the French Renaissance composer Jean Mouton, setting a Marian text about the Virgin giving birth while remaining undefiled. It is written for eight voices as a canon between two four-voice choirs, with the following choir reproducing the first at a fixed interval a...

Orlando di Lasso was a hugely influential 16th-century composer primarily associated with the Renaissance period. He created an astonishing volume of music – exceeding two thousand compositions – spanning vocal and instrumental works across diverse styles including motets, masses, madrigals, and cha...

Exsultate, jubilate, K. 165, is a sacred solo motet composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1773 for the castrato Venanzio Rauzzini, who performed it in Milan. Written for solo soprano voice with orchestral accompaniment, it comprises contrasting lyrical and lively sections. The work is especially kn...

Tomás Luis de Victoria was a Spanish composer working primarily during the late Renaissance period. He is recognized as a pivotal figure in sacred music, particularly for his complex and deeply expressive polyphonic motets. His works, largely composed for the Chapel of Granada, demonstrate an unpara...

Media vita in morte sumus is a sacred motet by the Renaissance composer Nicolas Gombert, setting the Latin antiphon whose opening means "In the midst of life we are in death." The work is written in dense, continuously flowing imitative polyphony, with overlapping vocal entries and few clear breaks...

Cantique de Jean Racine, Op. 11 is a sacred choral work composed by Gabriel Faure in 1865 while he was studying at the Ecole Niedermeyer in Paris. It sets a French paraphrase by Jean Racine of a Latin hymn traditionally used at Tuesday matins and was originally written for mixed choir with organ or...

O Magnum Mysterium is an unaccompanied choral motet composed by Morten Lauridsen in 1994. It sets the traditional Latin Christmas responsory reflecting on the mystery of animals witnessing the newborn Christ, using sustained harmonies, carefully controlled dissonance, and predominantly homophonic te...

Lux Aurumque is a short choral work by American composer Eric Whitacre, written in 2000 for unaccompanied mixed choir. It sets a Latin translation by Charles Anthony Silvestri of an English poem by Edward Esch, using sustained chords, close harmonic spacing, and carefully controlled dissonance to ev...

Sleep is an unaccompanied choral work by American composer Eric Whitacre, completed around 2000 and set to a text by poet Charles Anthony Silvestri. Its slow harmonic movement, sustained clusters, and carefully controlled dissonances create a quiet musical treatment of rest, night, and release. Writ...

Water Night is an a cappella choral composition by American composer Eric Whitacre, written in the mid-1990s. It sets an English translation of a poem by Mexican writer and Nobel laureate Octavio Paz, using closely spaced harmonies, sustained sonorities, and shifting vocal textures for mixed choir....

Cloudburst is a choral composition by American composer Eric Whitacre, based on a Spanish-language poem by Octavio Paz. Written for mixed choir with piano and percussion, it includes spoken and sung passages as well as body percussion used to imitate the gathering sound of rain and a thunderstorm. T...

John Dunstaple (c. 1390–1453) was an English composer whose polyphonic works were among the most influential of the early Renaissance. His music employed what Continental contemporaries called the contenance angloise, a style characterized by full triadic sonorities and smooth melodic lines that con...

Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643–1704) was a French Baroque composer who studied in Rome before working in Paris. He composed in a wide variety of genres, including opera, secular songs, and large-scale sacred works for chorus and orchestra. His most recognized piece is the "Te Deum" in D major, H. 14...

Philippe de Vitry was a French composer, poet, and music theorist who lived during the late medieval period. He is widely recognized for his authorship of the treatise 'Ars Nova', a foundational text that introduced innovative rhythmic notation and mensural music theory. His compositions, primarily...

Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine is an unaccompanied choral work by American composer Eric Whitacre, composed in 2001. It sets a text by Charles Anthony Silvestri that imagines Leonardo da Vinci's thoughts, dreams, and frustrations as he pursues the possibility of human flight. Written for mixe...

Jacob Obrecht (1457/58–1505) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance, born in Ghent, whose masses and motets rank among the most ambitious polyphonic achievements of his generation. He served in courts and churches across the Low Countries and Italy, ending his career at Ferrara. His masses...

Northern Lights, also titled Nordnorsk Salme, is a choral work by Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo that sets the Latin text Pulchra es, amica mea from the Song of Songs. Written for unaccompanied mixed choir, it uses sustained harmonies, shifting tonal colors, and divided vocal parts to evoke the visua...

Ubi Caritas by Ola Gjeilo is a contemporary choral setting of the traditional Latin Eucharistic hymn, frequently paired with piano or string accompaniment and widely used in liturgical contexts.

There Will Be Rest (2000) by American composer Frank Ticheli sets a poem by Sara Teasdale for SATB chorus, and is widely praised for its lyrical, expressive choral writing.

O Bone Jesu is a devotional motet attributed to Renaissance composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c. 1525–1594), exemplifying his smooth, flowing sacred polyphony.

The Ground by Ola Gjeilo is a choral and string work rooted in a repeating bass ostinato, reflecting his characteristic fusion of sacred minimalism and Romantic lyricism.