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I did a bit of research on this looking up the composer Taverner. I searched and searched to find the song sung in the Crypt Church during Pope Benedict’s visit to the U.S. It was the most beautiful music I’d ever heard. Sounds like angels!
"The ordinary of the mass (consisting of the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Benedictus, Agnus Dei, and in some medieval masses also the “Ite, missa est”) has been a focal point of choral music for more than 600 years. The earliest masses, such as the four-part setting by the 14th-century French composer Guillaume de Machaut, were intended for soloists; remarkable both in musical texture and structure, they are often performed chorally today. In the 15th century this tradition, in which architectonic considerations still held sway, was carried on in the masses of the English composer … "
It helps to know the Latin words for the sections of the Mass and the common prayers said at Mass, as those are also the titles of the songs.
"John Taverner, (b. c. 1490, South Lincolnshire, England—d. October 15, 1545, Boston, Lincolnshire), English composer known primarily for his sacred works. His music represents the culmination of early 16th-century English polyphony.
In 1526 Taverner went to the University of Oxford to become master of the choir in the chapel of Cardinal College (later Christ Church). He left Oxford in 1530 to serve as a lay clerk in St. Boltoph choir in Boston, England, where he may have taken up the position of chorister instructor. However, by 1537 he had ended his association with the choir, at which time he … "
I believe both protestant denominations and Catholics had composers who would take the psalms or words from Scripture and composers songs that were sung by 3 or 4 very highly skilled choral singers at Mass.
“…polyphony, in music, strictly speaking, any music in which two or more tones sound simultaneously (the term derives from the Greek word for “many sounds”); thus, even a single interval made up of two simultaneous tones or a chord of three simultaneous tones is rudimentarily polyphonic.”
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"motet, (French mot: “word”), style of vocal composition that has undergone numerous transformations through many centuries. Typically, it is a Latin religious choral composition, yet it can be a secular composition or a work for soloist(s) and instrumental accompaniment, in any language, with or without a choir.
The motet began in the early 13th century as an application of a new text (i.e., “word”) to older music. Specifically, the text was added to the wordless upper-voice parts of descant clausulae. These were short sections of organum, a 13th-century and earlier form consisting of a plainchant melody in the tenor, above … (100 of 727 words)"
Quotes from
britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/393896/motet
““Miserere mei, Deus” (Latin: “Have mercy on me, O God”) by Italian composer Gregorio Allegri, is a setting of Psalm 51 (50) composed during the reign of Pope Urban VIII, probably during the 1630s, for use in the Sistine Chapel during matins, as part of the exclusive Tenebrae service on Wednesday and Friday of Holy Week” (wikipedia)"
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