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Johann Hermann Schein and Musica poetica : a study of the application of musical-rhetorical figures in the spiritual madrigals of the Israelsbrünnlein (1623)

University of British Columbia

The present study examines the musical-rhetorical figures of the of the 17th-century "Figurenlehre" as they are applied to the spiritual madrigals of Johann Hermann Schein's "Israelsbrunnlein"(1623). Although analogies between music and text had been made long before the turn of the 17th century, it was not until Schein's own lifetime that a codified list of musical parallels to the classical rhetorical figures of oratory was compiled by Joachim Burmeister in 1599. The consequent effect of the "Figurenlehre" on music composition (musica poetica) during the remainder of the Baroque period was such that this prototypical list of musical-rhetorical figures underwent constant revision and expansion during the next one hundred and fifty years. Schein wrote at least one treatise on the subject of music composition which may very well have treated the subject of musical rhetoric. But owing to the disappearance of this manuscript, it is necessary to examine Schein's own background, assessing the pertinent elements of his own musical and rhetorical education, in order to amass sufficient historical evidence to justify a musical-rhetorical analysis of his spiritual madrigals. This study presents an abundance of substantiating evidence to support an analysis of this nature with regard to his through-composed works. The figures applied to Schein's works in this thesis are derived from contemporary 17th-century German treatises, and the results of the analyses show that musical-rhetorical figures pervade the entire composition, either as rhetorical figures of decoration or as figures of structural significance. In both cases, though, the prevailing musical-rhetorical figures parallel at all times the affect or rhetoric expressed in the sacred texts, showing ultimately the coalescent properties of the musical-rhetorical figures.

Text

2010-03-30

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/23096

Music

University of British Columbia

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