The use of Rhetoric in Brazilian Colonial Music

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 musicology in the mid -1960s, with the purpose to understand the ways these teachings unfold, initiated many studies that contributed to the development of new analytical means, intended to clarify the relationship between music and affect. 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. Due to that fact, this thesis aims to examine the use of rhetoric in Brazilian Colonial Music and verify the case studies about such use as well. In other words, its objective is to ascertain the use of rhetorical elements in Manoel Dias de Oliveira, José Joaquim Emerico Lobo de Mesquita, André da Silva Gomes and José Maurício Nunes Garcia, using analytical tools related to the sacred text and harmony, which are necessary for the understanding of rhetorical language in the works of these masters of composition. (AU)