those composers who spent time in Italy, for example in the papal choir. The most prominent secular forms used by the Burgundians were the four formes fixes (rondeau, ballade, virelai, and bergerette), all generically known as chansons. Of the four, the rondeau was by far the most popular; at any rate more rondeaux have survived than any other form. Most of the rondeaux were in three voices, and in French, though there are a few in other languages. In most of the rondeaux, the uppermost voice (the "superius") was texted, and the other voices were most likely played by instruments. The bergerette was developed by the Burgundians themselves; it was like a virelai, but shorter, having only one stanza. Most of the composers also wrote sacred music in Latin; this was to remain true for the next several generations. They wrote both masses and motets, as well as cycles of Magnificats. During the period, the mass transformed from a group of individual sections written by different composers, often using a head-motif technique, to unified cycles based on a cantus firmus. Dufay, Binchois, Busnois, Reginald Liebert and others all wrote cyclic masses. One of the favorite tunes used as a cantus firmus was the renowned l'homme armé, which was set not only by the Burgundians but by composers of subsequent centuries; indeed it was the most common tune used as a basis for mass composition in all of music history, with more than forty surviving masses featuring the melody. David Fallows writes of it in the New Grove: "It is hard to think of any other melody in the history of music that has yielded so much music of the highest quality." During the period the motet transformed from the isorhythmic model of the 14th century to the smoothly polyphonic, sectional composition seen in the work of the later Burgundians such as Busnois. In the motets, as well as the masses and other sacred music, a common musical technique employed was fauxbourdon, a harmonization of an existing chant in parallel 6-3 chords, occasionally ornamented to prevent monotony. Composition using fauxbourdon allowed sung text to be clearly understood, but yet avoided the plainness of simple chant. Burgundian motets tended to be in Latin, written for three voices with the top voice being the most important. An example of a Burgundian motet is Quam pulchra es, written by Dunstaple in the early 15th