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Chapter 13
involved the fields of grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric. 12 The writings of Aristotle,
Cicero, and Quintilian were taught systematically in the Latin parochial schools
and universities, and students were trained to compose an oration following the
rhetorical processes and to identify rhetorical figures in the literature they studied.
Lutheran cantors taught music, rhetoric, and Latin. Johann Sebastian Bach, whose
connection with rhetoric had began when he was a student at the lyceum in
Ohrdruf and continued when he attended the Michaelisschule in Luneburg, gave
five Latin lessons a week while at the St Thomas School in Leipzig. Furthermore,
during his years at Mühlhausen and Weimar, he might have been acquainted with
the rhetorical treatises by Johann Georg Ahle and Johann Gottfried Walther. 13
Through the Lutheran emphasis on the effectual delivery of God's Word,
rhetoric formed 'the basis of preaching the Gospel to the congregation during the
services. The preacher, as an imitator of the ancient orator, was to use a
persuasive discourse in order to proclaim effectively the Holy Word to his
audience, and his task was achieved more successfully through the intervention of
music. Music served the text and made for a more effective delivery of the Holy
Gospel by underlining features of the text and reinforcing its inherent affection. 14
The composer, on the other hand, was to compose his music aiming to
highlight the significance of the words and to arouse the affections reflected by
the associated text. The musical composition was considered a "[... ] predicatio
sonora (a musical sermon)", 15 the "viva vox evangelii" ("the living voice of the
Gospel"), 16 and the art that would assist the composer to find the artistic devices
for this objective was that of rhetoric. The two basic tools most suitable for the
accomplishment of this task were the rhetorical structure and the employment of
rhetorical figures. Both were embraced by Lutheran musicians in order to become
skilful `preachers', and musical-rhetorical figures, particularly, were regarded as
12 Vickers, `Figures of Rhetoric/ Figures of Music? ', pp. 1-4.
13 Vincent P. Benitez, `Musical-Rhetorical Figures in the Orgelbiichlein of J. S. Bach', Bach (The
Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute), 18.1 (January 1987), 3-21 (pp. 4-5).
14 Bartel, pp. 8-9.
is Samuel E. Harold, The Cantata in Nuremberg during the Seventeenth Century (Ann Arbor,
Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1982), p. 181, cited in Benitez, p. 3.
16 Oskar Söhngen, Theologie der Musik (Kassel: Johannes Stauda Verlag, 1967), p. 97, cited and
translated by Bartel, p. 8.