ABSTRACT
The idea that upper-voice structures may on occasion help to govern those of the tenor opens up new possible avenues of interpretation, even as it may also challenge arguments grounded in the conviction that the tenors necessarily wield a primary shaping force over motets. Machaut’s S’il estoit/S’Amours (Motet 6), frequently discussed in the scholarly literature, serves as a productive example of the differences that can result from reading a motet from the bottom up versus from the top down. Since all existing analyses of S’il estoit/S’Amours begin with the tenor, we will begin there as well, before turning to the alternative approach.
