Musical Rhetoric

Con questo elaborato si intende presentare una visione sul madrigale (con un sommario excursus evolutivo) in una prospettiva dedicata in particolare a quelle modalità rappresentative specifiche chiamate madrigalismi. I madrigalismi abbracciano un insieme complesso e variabile di costanti che li rendono ancora sfuggevoli a una definizione univoca e onnicomprensiva. Si ragionerà perciò sulle loro definizioni arrivandoci dal concetto di imitazione – non nuovo in ambito retorico e neppure sconosciuto alle discipline visive, le quali operano essenzialmente sulla rappresentazione mimetica della natura e della realtà. Per questo motivo si è scelto di iniziare la riflessione mettendo in parallelo le due prospettive sull’imitazione nelle arti visive e nell’arte musicale, partendo dal termine vasariano di maniera. Le similitudini sono notevoli, a partire dal medesimo contesto storico-sociale, fino ad analoghi appelli per un ribaltamento del ruolo dell’espressività comunicativa contro un sistema imposto di regole e divieti.

Propuesta de análisis siguiendo los presupuestos teóricos de la retórica musical
aplicados a la sonata BWV 1030 para flauta y clave. Escrita por un gran conocedor de
la Retórica, disciplina que estudió en la escuela, J.S. Bach emplea numerosas figuras extramusicales para conseguir suscitar determinados efectos en el oyente. En la Retórica se encuentra la clave para dar explicación a figuras que en algunos casos transgreden las reglas tradicionales del contrapunto.

Based on the musical rhetorical principles, this paper provides new perspectives
of analysis on J.S. Bach Sonate BWV 1030 for flute and harpsichord. This composer
was an expert on Rhetoric, a subject which he studied during his school years. That is why Bach realizes its value raising feelings in the listener and uses consciously a lot of extramusical ornaments and figures. Rhetoric is the key in order to understand the meaning of figures which trespass usual counterpoint rules.

Handel was a creator of skilfully set musical moods and ideas. He merged traditional German based harmonic of contrasts with Italianate - French musical rhetoric of affections, which he formulated into originally inventive expression of tonal palette. Giulio Cesare in Egitto, is on e of his all-time most successful operas. I will examine Handel ́s rhetoric based musical applications of emotive methods occurring in his Giulio Cesare, which function as opera ́s alternatives, giving narrative clues by hunting, military and pastoral tropes for different performance views.

Los primeros años del siglo XVII inician uno de los periodos más extraordinarios y fructíferos de la música valenciana. El gran iniciador de una nueva manera de hacer música es, sin duda, Joan Baptista Comes. Su obra, aun poco conocida y difundida, es un claro ejemplo de evolución desde los procedimientos compositivos renacentistas hacia la nueva concepción barroca y se erige como una influencia indispensable para generaciones posteriores de compositores.

El presente trabajo pretende estudiar la música del compositor valenciano Joan Baptista Comes desde el prisma de la retórica musical, disciplina normalmente ligada al lenguaje y cuyos principios y mecanismos fueron adaptados e incorporados a la música entre los siglos XVI y XVIII, dotándola de un corpus teórico y terminológico que sirvió de base y fundamento para la composición, convirtiéndose en la primera herramienta de análisis musical. Para ello, el trabajo centra el estudio en sus villancicos, obras donde se puede encontrar un estilo musical más innovador para su época y una voluntad más certera para reforzar los significados textuales y representar los llamados afectos a través de los principios y mecanismos de la retórica musical. De esta manera se señala la fuerte relación existente entre el nuevo estilo musical surgido con el villancico y los procedimientos retórico-musicales.

Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611) es uno de los compositores más importantes e interpretados del Renacimiento. El himno Vexilla regis «more hispano» es la última de las piezas que conforman su Officium Hebdomae Sanctae, seguramente, junto con su Officium defunctorum, la colección musical más importante del abulense. Esta obra tiene la particularidad de estar compuesta a partir de un cantus firmus basado en el canto hispano o toledano, lo que le confiere una especial singularidad.
En el presente trabajo se estudia cómo el contexto cultural de Victoria, en especial el humanismo y el contexto religioso caracterizado por la Contrarreforma, condicionaron su estilo musical. Para comprender su estilo musical se realiza un análisis del Vexilla regis «more hispano» desde la perspectiva de la retórica musical, relacionando las diferentes figuras retóricas utilizadas por Victoria con el texto y su significado. Finalmente, se compara el análisis realizado de la obra de Victoria con el análisis de otras obras de sus contemporáneos con el mismo texto, para comprobar los rasgos estilísticos que el compositor abulense comparte con sus contemporáneos, así como los que lo diferencian y son específicos de su manera de componer.

The Minotaur is the opera composed by Harrison Birtwistle to libretto
by David Harsent. It was premiered in 2008 in Royal Opera House,
Covent Garden. Birtwistle’s musical language is basically modernist: atonal, centralised, based on interval or number patterns, pre-compositional operations, scales invented by the composer himself. His music is recognised as generally intellectual and connected with great avantgarde of 20th century. On the other hand, Birtwistle has never denied expression in his pieces. Titles and extra-musical inspirations are common (i.e. Melencolia 1). Birtwistle is inspired by music of the Middle
Ages, Renaissance, and, less often, Baroque. The score of The Minotaur is full of rhetorical figures: both hypothyposis and emphasis. They are evident and immediately recognised in spite of contemporary, atonal language of the opera. Mostly, they are inspired by Baroque musical-rhetorical figures but there are examples of individual, contemporary means. Figures are local and connected with only one or few words. General atmosphere of fear and isolation can be created with ‘rhetorical strategies’, which are active much longer than figures. Birtwistle uses musical symbols as well. There are two main symbols in The Minotaur: the iambic ‘glissando gesture’ which opens the opera and appears in its key moments, and the ‘motif of fate’ – repetition connected with powers of fate and with tragic irony.The question is, why Birtwistle used so traditional and instantlyrecognisable means, as he is known for his highly intellectual music. Answer given in this text is that they stay in service of narration. They are audible and visible signs of telling the story.

The present study tackles the rhetorical system, which permeated the Classical era as well as our culture from the Renaissance till the last decade from the 18th century, from a standpoint that allows us to reach a significant perspective both in the comprehension of the system and in the analysis of the works that emerge from it. The first part of this study proposes a route throughout the most significant aspects of the Roman rhetorical system, as devised by Cicero and Quintilian. The aim is to bring back their definition and restore awareness of the importance of the ideal orator, which they propose in their treatises as the proved core of the system. The second part of this work has examined exhaustively the presence of the figure of the orator that these two authors constructed in a selection of some musical treatises from the 18th century. The third part consists of an immersion in every aspect of the rhetorical discourse, the elaborated result of the perfect orator as configured in the first part of this study. In order to observe how the parameters related to the rhetorical discourse materialise in music, a rhetorical approach to two arias da capo by J.S. Bach is developed: “Ach, mein Sinn” and “Erbarme mich”. Both of them refer to the same narrative point: Peter’s denial in the two Passions, St. John’s Passion and St. Matthew’s Passion respectively. J.S. Bach and his music, the speaker and his sonorous discourse, reveal an absolute familiarity with the universal of the ideal orator that the Roman treatise writers created, an increasingly blurred profile in a time of profound changes as was the 18th century. The moderate degree in which the echoes of the Classic Antiquity resound in the century that opens the modern era shows us who we are, what is the root of the current understanding of the artistic and scenic elements. It points out what should be considered to achieve a totally rhetorical communication in the repertoire that calls for it, beyond the technical challenges that the music may impose, the preciosity in which we have transformed the search for beauty, and the speed of the diverse artistic production systems both past and present.

Versification in Handel´s opera Giulio Cesare in Egitto: surfaces of performativity and intertextuality I examine musical, performative and versification features in some recent representations of Handel´s opera Giulio Cesare via rhetoric based musical emotive theories. Giulio Cesare in Egitto, Julius Caesar in Egypt was first performed in London in 1724, and it is an opera in three acts by Georg Friedrich Handel to a libretto written by Nicola Francesco Haym adapted from Giacomo Francesco Bussani´s Giulio Cesare in Egitto in 1677 and a later version of the same libretto in 1685. By studying the emotive methods utilized by the composer in the opera, I imagine what the messages by the composer to his audience were and how contemporary listener in the 18 th century might have experienced the performances of the work. Handel operates with musical motifs as versification and signifying the thematic meanings and structure of Giulio Cesare. For example in Cornelia´s aria " Cessa omai di sospirare " , an end now to sighing, she determinedly emphasizes words heaven, hope and constancy, which prove also to have musical melodic corresponding motifs and metric figures. The characterizations follow the themes of the work. The frameworks of this study include emotive theories derived from antiquity, Eero Tarasti´s existential semiotical Soi-Moi-modal model, and Raymond Monelle's pastoral-epoque, hunting-protest, military-colonialist musical tropes. My focus is on the overlapping of the surfaces of Giulio Cesare´s performativity, timelessness and flexibility in its 20th and 21st century performances, which are seen as acts of realization of the work, the composer is viewed as one of the performers of it. Handel utilized musical rhetoric via emotive tools in intertextual ways, so the renderings form out models of recent constructions, representing instances of basic views of an epoch (traditional), as well as satiric/ironic (modern) and colonialist (flamboyant) readings of the work.

Despite the frequently critiqued prolixity in much of his oeuvre, Alexander Agricola (1445/46-1506) crafted music comprehensible enough to elicit great praise from numerous contemporaries. What is then inherently praiseworthy in this abstruse music? In his Salve Regina I, Agricola crafts a musical argument for his garrulity, the thesis of which aims to clarify and justify the virtue of his style. While Agricola employed cantus firmus conventions to provide formal scaffolding, he also imbues discursiveness with comprehensibility through rhetorical techniques, such as inflection of cadence, clearness of imitation, phraseology of text, and varied implementation of cantus firmus. Articulating the micro-structure of his music, these components are then couched in the discourse of the classical argument: an introduction, confirmation, and refutation of a thesis. In Agricola’s Salve Regina I, motet becomes a medium for the exhibition and logical justification of his musical thesis of abstract polystylism.

Os conceitos de retórica musical desenvolvidos na época da Reforma Protestante ainda estão presentes na composição cristã da contemporaneidade? Este breve artigo reúne a retórica musical e a semiótica da canção segundo Luiz Tatit para verificar essa resposta na análise do cântico "Eu quero olhar", do quarteto Arautos do Rei

CSIC. Revista de literatura, Vol 71, No 141 (2009):57-84

La cosmología humanista europea se basa en la idea de una coherencia macrocósmica —la armonía de las esferas—, que se refleja en el ámbito microcósmico humano de la poética literaria, musical o gestual. La existencia misma de la disonancia, como metáfora o como hecho, cuestiona el concepto humanista y prerracionalista del decoro poético hasta lo más profundo.

Entre 1550 y 1700, las categorías de los afectos éticos y de las pasiones indecorosas se oponen entre sí hasta acabar siendo asimiladas bajo el culto a la Razón. En este mismo período, los autores literarios y musicales, además de intérpretes de todo tipo, desde los que ponen en escena cualquiera de las múltiples variedades de drama musical hasta los bailarines, exploran los límites del universo pasional subvirtiendo así el decorum convencional basado en la idea de consonancia. El uso de la disonancia literaria, musical o gestual es uno de sus instrumentos poéticos y retóricos más efectivos.

PALABRAS CLAVE:

Disonancia; consonancia; decorum; afectos; pasiones; erotismo; Aristóteles; Gioseffo Zarlino; Torquato Tasso; López Pinciano; Bances Candamo; Athanasius Kircher; Claudio Monteverdi; Pietro Cerone; Andrés Lorente; Pablo Nasarre; Marie Catherine d’Aulnoy; zarabanda

This article examines a hypothetical compositional and pedagogical use of the Langloz manuscript, a collection of German partimenti, during the time of J. S. Bach. The partimento is reconceptualized as a bridge to free composition, by aligning it with what Bach and his Thuringian and Hamburgian neighbors (including Werckmeister, Walther, Niedt, and Mattheson) called inventiones: materials for free composition that are subject to substantial development, involving processes of elaboration, variation, extension, and expansion. My argument is borne out by a historically informed practical demonstration: my own composition of a Prelude in D minor, which broadly derives from the partimento-prelude numbered 48 in the manuscript. The transformation of a simple thoroughbass into a fully worked-out composition pivots on two species of invention and their development, one structural, the other stylistic: 1) a genre-specific structuring principle that is coded into the partimento; for the prelude genre, this concerns long-range scale-harmonizations spanning 1–4 octaves; the principle recurs in several preludes of The Langloz Manuscript and of The Well-Tempered Clavier; and 2) the subject (thema) of a composition, which results from novel combinations of musical topics (Manieren), and the constructive imitation of other composers’ uses of styles and genres (locus exemplorum).

The study of discourse with an emphasis in the audience was the most important legacy left by Chaïm Perelman among his contributions to rhetorics. This bias, although present in Aristotelian rhetoric yet, was crucial in order to clarify the adherence. However, when it is taken as an object of analysis a non-verbal discourse, interactions between speaker and audience and the negotiation of the meanings of speech are impaired and begin to demand other evaluation indexes. This is the case of the musical discourse. Since for Perelman "an effective argument is that you can increase the intensity of adherence", we will discuss how adherence can be set in contemporary music. The object of analysis to this study is the piece Sequenza XIV (2002), written by the Italian composer Luciano Berio (1925-2003).

Este artigo abriga uma reflexao sobre quais seriam os modos de se pensar nas conhecidas figuras retorico-musicais, que habitavam a escrita musical do periodo Barroco, mas  de maneira coerente a realidade estetica da musica contemporânea. Para isso, sera avaliado o proprio conceito de retorica e como esses dispositivos tropicos eram descritos nos tratados classicos. Em seguida, serao estudadas nocoes atuais acerca dessa materia, sobretudo a partir das revisoes da Nova Retorica. Em posse dessa reflexao conceitual, serao conduzidas analises musicais que pratiquem os pontos levantado, nesse caso, a Sequenza XIV  e Les Mots Sont Alles..., do compositor italiano Luciano Berio e Maknongan, do tambem italiano Giacinto Scelsi.

A 20 minutes paper for the17th Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music hosted by Canterbury Christ Church University I examine musical, performative and versification features in some representations of Handel´s opera Giulio Cesare via rhetoric based musical emotive theories. The opera was first performed in London in 1724, it is in three acts by Georg Friedrich Handel to a libretto written by Nicola Francesco Haym adapted from Giacomo Francesco Bussani´s namesake in 1677 and a later version of the same libretto in 1685. By studying the emotive methods utilized by the composer in the opera, I imagine what the messages by the composer to his audience were and how contemporary listener in the 18 th century might have experienced the performances of the work. Handel operates with musical motifs as versification and signifying the thematic meanings of Giulio Cesare. For example in Cornelia´s aria " Cessa omai di sospirare " , an end now to sighing, she determinedly emphasizes words heaven, hope and constancy, which have corresponding musical figures. The characterizations follow the themes of the work. The frameworks of this study include emotive theories derived from antiquity, Eero Tarasti´s existential semiotical Soi-Moi-modal model, and Raymond Monelle's pastoral-epoque, hunting-protest, military-colonialist musical tropes. My focus is on the overlapping surfaces of Giulio Cesare´s performativity, timelessness and flexibility in its 20th and 21st century performances, seen as acts of realization of the work, the composer is viewed as one of the performers of it. Handel utilized musical rhetoric via emotive tools intertextually, so the renderings form out models, representing instances of basic readings of the work.

Perscrutar os meandros pelos quais um compositor transita para a construção de um discurso musical exige do analista uma visão que atine para as múltiplas dimensões da obra, levando em consideração, além dos elementos intrínsecos à mesma, elementos extrínsecos significativos para que da análise resultem interpretações que respeitem as especificidades do autor e de seu tempo. Tendo em vista este paradigma, a abordagem analítica que este estudo adota tem por objetivo lançar luz sobre os procedimentos compositivos na derradeira obra do padre-mestre João de Deus do Castro Lobo (1794-1832), os Seis Responsórios Fúnebres, compostos em data próxima ao seu falecimento, tomando por base três perspectivas analíticas que se assentam em premissas teóricas da época: tópicos musicais, schemata e elementos retórico-musicais. Intenta-se, com isto, vincular autor e obra a uma tradição de escrita que remete ao Estilo Galante. Para além da identificação de procedimentos, busca-se interpretar os dados como elementos fundantes de uma estratégia criativa e comunicativa mais ampla. Assim, ao conjugar o conteúdo musical com o texto litúrgico, pretende-se evidenciar o tratamento estilístico e as nuances expressivas no discurso musical estabelecido pelo compositor, demonstrando que as recorrências de procedimentos musicais podem estar imbuídas de significado afetivo e social.

Palavras-chave: João de Deus do Castro Lobo; Música Brasileira; Teoria e Análise Musical; Tópicos Musicais, Schemata e Retórica Musical; Responsórios Fúnebres.

To investigate the meanders through which a composer moves in the construction of a musical discourse requires from the analyst a vision that touches on the multiple dimensions of the work, taking into account, besides the intrinsic elements of the work, significant extrinsic elements so that the analysis results in interpretations that respect the specificities of the author and his time. In view of this paradigm, the analytical approach adopted in this study aims to shed light on the compositional procedures in the last work of the priest-master João de Deus do Castro Lobo (1794-1832), the Six Funeral Responsories, composed at a date close to his death, based on three analytical perspectives that are based on theoretical premises of the time: musical topics, schemata and rhetorical-musical elements. With this, we try to link author and work to a tradition of writing that refers to the Galant Style. Besides the identification of procedures, the aim is to interpret the data as founding elements of a broader creative and communicative strategy. Thus, by combining the musical content with the liturgical text, the aim is to highlight the stylistic treatment and expressive nuances in the musical discourse established by the composer, demonstrating that the recurrence of musical procedures can be imbued with affective and social meaning.

Keywords: João de Deus do Castro Lobo; Brazilian Music; Music Theory and Analysis; Musical Topics, Schemata and Musical Rhetoric; Funeral Responsories.

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Western European music in the eighteenth-century was conceived with a rhetorical aim to establish communication links with listeners. Such musical rhetoric was not limited to the German environment; it also influenced teaching and composition in Portugal. This article aims to identify Portuguese rhetorical thought taking as a case study the Kyrie from the Mass in C by André da Silva Gomes.

A forma é um dos parâmetros mais presentes nas análises do discurso e, do mesmo modo, o é na análise do discurso musical. Todavia, a complexificação estrutural da música contemporânea tem tornado cada vez mais improvável um pensamento analítico sobre essa dimensão que corresponda à realidade estética de seu material. Tendo em vista que a ideia de uma forma musical surge justamente do contato que a retórica e a música vêm tendo através dos tempos, a forma será discutida aqui a partir do referencial da Nova retórica, movimento importante para a retomada do pensamento retórico no século XX. Essa tão necessária readequação epistemológica faz emergirem outras questões de ordem pressuposicional, sendo discutidas brevemente aqui algumas delas, como a questão do tempo e das noções de matéria e forma. Por fim, a discussão terá sua aplicabilidade verificada através de análises formais da Sequenza XIV e de Les Mots Sont Allés..., ambas escritas pelo compositor Luciano Berio.

O trabalho discute os eventos que levaram a retórica, dispositivo essencial para a estruturação da linguagem musical, a não mais ser utilizada e estudada dentro da prática musical. A discussão visa identificar as razões pelas quais tal declínio ocorreu, principalmente através das modificações no pensamento filosófico, que se refletiram na construção da arte musical como um todo. Por fim, serão identificados alguns pontos remanescentes nos quais pode ainda ser visto o espírito da retórica na música posterior.