Musical-Rhetorical Figures illustrated in Bach’s Matthaus-Passion

Abstract

This paper discusses the field of musical rhetoric. After a brief illustration of several rhetorical concepts from the Baroque period, rhetorical figures are highlighted within the comprehensive framework of traditional rhetoric. The transfer from rhetorical devices to musical-rhetorical figures is thus emphasized by analogy with the specific musical language. The most consistent part of the current paper, the analysis of musical figures, uses examples from ‘Matthäus-Passion. These are divided into seven distinct categories: figures of melodic repetition, figures of harmonic repetition (fugal figures), figures of representation and depiction, figures of dissonance and displacement, figures of interruption and silence, figures of melodic and harmonic ornamentation, miscellaneous figures.