Musical paraphrase, in general, had been used for a long time before it was first applied to the music of the Ordinary of the mass. It was common in the early and middle 15th century for a work such as a motet to use an embellished plainchant melody as its source, with the melody usually in the topmost voice. John Dunstaple's Gloria is an example of this procedure, as are the two settings by Guillaume Dufay of the Marian Antiphon Alma redemptoris mater. Many compositions in fauxbourdon, a characteristic technique of the Burgundian School, use a paraphrased version of a plainchant tune in the highest voice. In these cases the source would not be obscured by the paraphrase; it was still easily recognizable through whatever ornamentation was applied.
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