Rhetoric and semiotic systems in the analysis of Baroque secular instrumental music

Abstract

Statement of the problem. The issue of musical rhetoric has not lost its relevance for musicologists for almost a century. Unfortunately, early treatises do not provide a clear definition of this subject. Therefore, during the process of developing perceptions about it, some stereotypes have emerged, which have led to misunderstandings that require analysis and explanation. One of these stereotypes is the consideration of rhetoric as a semiotic system. Recent research and publications. The chosen problematicy has determined the reference to four groups of studies. The first group includes the works focusing on the subject of semiotics, the relationship between semiotics and music, and critical comparative views on the semiotic system (Dunsby, 1983; Turino, 1999; Dahl, 2019). A thorough critical analysis of various methodological approaches to semiotic concepts is presented in the studies of N. Cook (1996) and K. Guczalski (2005). The second group comprises important historical “rhetorical” treatises, without which it is impossible to develop an appropriate approach to the problems of musical rhetoric (Nucius, 1613; Kircher, 1650; Bernhard, 1660; Printz, 1678; Praetorius/Lampl, 1957; Mattheson/Lenneberg, 1958). The third group of researches consists of modern works, in which musical rhetoric is considered as a set of rhetorical figures with certain symbolic sense (Cameron, 2006; Komenda, 2010; Popova, 2015; Zgółka, 2016; Lebedev, 2016; Bashmakova, 2017). And the last group contains research works with a critical approach to stereotypical interpretations of musical rhetorical figures. G. G. Butler (1977) examines the musical processes related to the use of figures taking in account the rules of Dispositio canon. R. Callahan (2010) and B. Karosi (2014) explore the figures as a component of improvisation. B. Vickers (1984) considers it reasonable and logical that the greatest attention of scholars was paid to the rhetorical canon Elocutio, which operates with rhetorical patterns, but takes a critical approach to the use of verbal and rhetorical terminology in music. The analysis and comparison of the aforementioned studies allows to refute the idea of the expediency of absorption of the rhetorical system by the semiotic one. Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The purpose of the study is to differ the systems of rhetoric and semiotic through the demonstration that rhetoric is not just a set of rhetorical figures with a certain semantics, but can be interpreted as a system of composition (poetics). Separating the perceptions of rhetoric from the semiotic projections, determining rhetoric as a holistic system and highlighting the differences between these two spheres actualizes the topic of the study. Such an analytical approach is first realized on the example of chamber music and Concerto for violins without bass by G. Ph. Telemann. The study involves the use of historical, comparative, semantic, and typological methods. Results and conclusion. The study has shown that musical rhetoric is a much wider concept than a semiotic system, as it includes the principles of composition, performance issues. It appears to be a clear canonical structure, on the basis of which an appropriate comprehensive analysis of the composition can be made and a convincing performance version can be prepared. Rhetorical figures, the presence of which is not denied, in contrast to a “sign” or “symbol”, do not have a stable semantic meaning, but rather obtain it only in the context of style, genre, harmonic, counterpoint and other forms of expression. Semiotics is currently presented as a collection of methods with numerous options and ways of understanding and interpreting them. Based on the statements above, we come to the conclusion that rhetoric cannot be interpreted as a semiotic system, therefore, in the process of analysis Baroque music, it does not seem necessary to turn to semiotics. However, if a scholar or interpreter considers this approach reasonable, this should not deter them from attempting to gain a deeper knowledge of a musical work and from referring to various concepts, which, nevertheless, are subject to argumentation. We also do not exclude the possibility of further separate research on this particular aspect.