Mapping Musical Dramaturgy: Towards a Theory of Rhetorical Performance
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: The article explores a musical dramaturgy of topical and rhetorical references from the point of view of a performer. Using an early Mozart symphony, K. 19 (London, 1765), the profound links between improvisation and composition in the eighteenth century are manifested. For Enlightenment aesthetics, as well as for the early romantics, spontaneity is a token of genuineness, and the best key to beauty and truth. The term ‘rhetoric’ is used in a more radical sense as it is usual in musical analysis, to include gestures that not always classify as ‘figures’. Also, dramaturgy is the term proposed instead of musical ‘narrative’. Finally, a model of musical agency in five self-contained steps is proposed. It is based on a hermeneutic approach, and also on historical theoretical texts.
Source: Roczniki Humanistyczne
Author: Joan Grimalt
Institution: Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya
Language: English
Subfield: Music
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4401829062