The Incipient Studies of Rhetoric in Colonial Brazilian Music.

Abstract

The Musical discourse, between the late sixteenth and early nineteenth centuries, consisted of rhetorical elements, coupled with organization and layout based on eloquence and persuasion, consequent of a scholastic transmission elapsed since the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, conferring a certain degree of excellence to songs produced both in Europe and in Brazil. This process is the result of historical and social contexts which have occurred since Antiquity, it is related to the work of scholars, thinkers and writers, thus forming the basis for the structural design of a music. The current musicology, with the intent to understand in which way these teachings ran through, initiated numerous studies which contribute to the development of new analytical means, targeted to clarify the relationship between music and affection. Despite this growing interest in the Luso-Brazilian environment, the studies on musical rhetoric are still in the initiate stage, however, they are seeking to develop the most appropriate methodologies for understanding their suitability and systematic design, which are structurally composed on the music of the current period investigated. Therefore, this project aims to examine the incipient studies of rhetoric in Colonial Brazilian music. That is, check the current situation in which the mapping of the models are, and specificities of these investigations. In addition, it aims to look into these processes and mechanisms in the works of Brazilian authors, for instance, Manoel Dias de Oliveira, André da Silva Gomes, José Maurício Nunes Garcia, among others, using the analytical tools necessary for the understanding of the rhetorical language of these masters of composition.