Rationale

This collection of motets is designed for amateur choirs which may or may not have a tenor. Every one of these motets was written for SAB, with the tenor part was inserted afterwards. The motets are musically satisfactory in either configuration and if a tenor puts in an apperance your bass and altos don't have to learn a different part. They are written for unnacompanied voices but an accompaniment is provided which should be used if needed.

Degree of Difficulty

While these motets are written for amateur choirs, I have not assumed that the lack of a tenor means that the rest of the choir cannot cope with interesting music. This may or may not be the case. The motets at the end of the book are more challenging than those at the beginning and I recommend that you look through the whole book and see which music suits your singers best.

When to sing the motets

The motets were designed to be sung during communion as this is the time that a motet/anthem is normally needed. However they can also be used at other times during the service.

These recordings use the SAB version. You can see the tenor part, but it is not played. This is so that you can hear the richness of the sound produced by just the three original parts