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Chapter 1 23
comprehensive system of musical-rhetorical figures was never formulated. 99 The
Greco-Roman classical tradition had prevailed as a strong cohesive bond in
countries such as France and Italy, and French composers were already competent
users of rhetorical figures, although they were not concerned with a classification
or codification of specific musical-rhetorical
devices. 100
In the French tradition,
rhetoric displayed a dual character, which included not only a functional aspect,
but also a decorative one. The creators of the French drama focused on the
elocutio part of the oration, which involved the apt use of eloquent language by
the orator in order to `move' the audience to certain emotions. The actor received
the mantle of the orator, since, as Rameau stated in his Traite de 1' Harmonie
A good musician should surrender himself to all the characters he
wishes to portray. Like a skillful actor he should take the place of the
speaker, believe himself to be at the location where the different events
he wishes to depict occur, and participate in these events as do those
most involved in them. He must declaim the text well, at least to
himself, and he must feel when and to what degree the voice should
rise or fall, so that he may shape his melody, harmony, modulation,
and movement accordingly. '°'
In England, on the other hand, only a few treatises testify to the
interrelationships between music and rhetoric. However, the importance of these
references has generally been overlooked by musicologists, since they did not
appear in music treatises, but in non-musical (rhetorical) writings. 102 Henry
99 Leslie Ellen Brown, 'Oratorical Thought and the Tragedie Lyrique: A Consideration of Musical-
Rhetorical Figures', College Music Symposium, 20.2 (Autumn 1980), 99-116 (pp. 99-100).
100 Despite the fact the L. E. Brown identifies a certain number of musical devices such as tirata,
anaphora, antitheton, hyperbole, pathopoeia, saltus duriusculus, and suspiratio in French lyric
drama, Bartel (Musica Poetica, 1997, p. 61) denounces the argument that these devices could be
regarded as musical-rhetorical figures. According to Bartel, since there are no references regarding
the compilation of musical-rhetorical treatises, one cannot presume that French composers were
aware of the pertinent application of figures in Baroque music, even though a complete system of
musical-rhetorical figures was never formulated. Even for the examination of musical-rhetorical
figures in the tragedie lyrique L. E. Brown is based on Arnold Schmitz's article ('Figuren,
musikalische-rhetorische', Musik in Geschichte and Gegenwart, 4 (1949), 176-83), while no
reference is given to a French musical-rhetorical treatise.
101 Jean-Philippe Rameau, Traite de 1'Harmonie reduite a ses Principes naturels (Paris: Jean-
Baptiste Christophe Ballard, 1722; facsimile of the 1722 edition, New York: Broude Brothers,
1965); English translation: Jean-Philippe Rameau, Treatise on Harmony, trans. by Philip Gossett
(New York: Dover Publications, 1971), p. 156.
102
Butler, 'Music and Rhetoric', p. 53.