Musica Poetica Musical Rhetorical Figures In German Baroque Music

Musica Poetica provides an unprecedented examination of the development of Baroque musical thought. The initial chapters, which serve as an introduction to the concept and teachings of musical-rhetorical figures, explore Martin Luther’s theology of music, the development of the Baroque concept of musica poetica, the idea of the affections in German Baroque music, and that music’s use of the principles and devices of rhetoric. Dietrich Bartel then turns to more detailed considerations of the musical-rhetorical figures that were developed in Baroque treatises and publications. After brief biographical sketches of the major theorists, Bartel examines those theorists’ interpretation and classification of the figures. The book concludes with a detailed presentation of the musical-rhetorical figures, in which each theorist’s definitions are presented in the original language and in parallel English translations. Bartel’s clear, detailed analysis of German Baroque musical-rhetorical figures, combined with his careful translations of interpretations of those figures from a wide range of sources, make this book an indispensable introduction and resource for all students of Baroque music.

Joachim Burmeister's early seventeenth-century treatise on the making of music is generally acknowledged to be central to the understanding of Baroque musical practice: it was the first systematically to explore the connection between rhetoric and music that became a cornerstone of Baroque musical thought. But until now neither a reliable modern edition nor a full translation of this seminal work has existed. This much-needed edition by Benito V. Rivera contains a critical transcription of the Latin text and an annotated translation on facing pages. In a lengthy introduction to the book, Rivera reviews Burmeister's two earlier treatises on musical composition, analyzes Musical Poetics as a whole, and places it within its historical context. An appendix to the edition reproduces the passages of music cited by Burmeister, greatly facilitating the interpretation of Burmeister's explanations of the rhetorical figures. The book will be of interest to music historians and theorists as well as to scholars of rhetoric.

This volume, edited from the proceedings of a unique conference held at Sam Houston State University, offers the reader an independent Texas-style celebration of Medieval and Renaissance culture and thought. In the opening article, Richard North reveals some ways in which medieval literature pioneered the modern novel. The following essays, drawing from philosophy, literature, music, art, architecture, history, and linguistics, include studies of the portrayal of women in medieval literature and art; discussions surrounding the hero of Paradise Lost; explorations into the thought of Thomas Aquinas; explications of linguistic puzzles in Beowulf; analyses of Shakespeare’s plays; considerations of renaissance architecture and instrumental music; and an investigation into the influence of rhetoric on musical composition.

This book brings together researchers from a range of disciplines that use diverse methodologies to provide new perspectives and formulate answers to questions about the meaning, means, and contextualisation of expressive performance in music.

The present study provides an extensive treatment of the topic of enargeia on the basis of the classical and humanist sources of its theoretical foundation. These serve as the basis for detailed analyses of verbal and pictorial works of the Classical Antiquity and the Early Modern Age.

The Crucifixion in Music studies the musical representation of words and the concepts and contexts to which words refer, examining the way the treatment of a literary text, namely the Crucifixus, coalesces into a recognizable musical tradition that individual composers follow, develop, modify, or ignore.

Baroque oboists Bruce Haynes and Geoffrey Burgess established reputations as authorities on the history of their instrument with their co-authored book The Oboe, voted an outstanding achievement by the American Music Instrument Society. Haynes' writings, notably The End of Early Music, are known for pioneering new approaches in historical performance practice and inspiring healthy debate among scholars and performers of early music. Burgess, an instructor at the Eastman School of Music, recently published Well-Tempered Woodwinds: Friedrich von Huene and the Making of Early Music in a New World, which combines the biography of a leading manufacturer of historic instruments with a history of the emerging early music scene in America. Bruce Haynes passed away in May, 2011.

Word and music studies is a relatively young discipline that has nonetheless generated a substantial amount of work. Recent studies in the field have embraced music in literature (word music, formal parallels to music in literature, verbal music), music and literarature (vocal music) and literature in music (programme music). Other positions have been defined in which song exists as an analysable category distinct from words and music and requiring its own grammar. Much of the literature has tended to focus on readings of the literary text, pushing theoretical and analytical concerns in music to one side, a trend that is as apparent among musicologists as among literary historians. The essays presented here from the third Liverpool Music Symposium seek accordingly to redress this situation. Contributors tackle the study of words and music from a number of standpoints, examining artists as diverse as Eminem, Patti Smith and Arnold Schoenberg.