After an elaborate process of classification, in which she traces the different subgenres and hybrids, Cumming concludes that the Continent adopted the English style cantilena style motets, "All three of these English genres -- isorhythmic motet, three-voice tenor motet, and cyclic Mass -- would go on to contribute essential features of structure, form and style to the four-voice tenor motet of the second half of the fifteenth century" (227).

Metallic chords punctuate a soaring soprano cantilena, rupturing our reverie with increasing ferocity; and the voice dissolves in a wheezing wind motive, then a single chord interval that suggests eternal peace.

In the variation from the Raymonda dream they can play with shifting, gemlike colors, but only if they grasp the cantilena, the melodic line.