Musicologica Olomucensia vol. 37(1), (2025):7-74 | DOI: 10.5507/mo.2025.010

Hudebně-rétorické figury: od teoretické Figurenlehre k hudební praxi

Martin Čurda
University of Ostrava, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, Czech Republic, ORCID: 0000-0003-4276-9021

Musical-Rhetorical Figures: from Theoretical Figurenlehre to Musical Practice

The present study builds on the author's experience with teaching musical-rhetorical figures to the students of a performance academy. It begins with listing a number of difficulties which the students of Figurenlehre must face, pointing out the insufficient reflection of this subject in Czech academic literature and the general lack of illustrative musical examples in the existing sources. The text is divided into three parts: the first offers a review of current academic literature on the subject (thus preparing the basis for further research); the second classifies musical-rhetorical figures and briefly comments on each category (thus supplying the reader with a "mind map" of this vast and varied territory); the third provides examples of the application of selected musical-rhetorical figures in compositional practice (hoping to increase the clarity and accessibility of the Figurenlehre). The third part of this study focuses on a narrow segment of the broad spectrum of musical-rhetorical figures: hypotyposis (tone-painting imitation), anabasis (ascending melody associated with positive affections), catabasis (descending melody associated with negative affections), circulatio (circular melodic motion), pathopoeia (expressive chromaticism), passus duriusculus (continuous chromatic progression expressing tragic affections), and saltus duriusculus (dissonant leap expressing dysphoric affections). The conclusion stresses the importance of Figurenlehre for music analysis and interpretation and highlights the need for a comprehensive anthology of musical examples of individual figures.

Keywords: musical-rhetorical figures; Figurenlehre; anabasis; catabasis; circulatio; passus duriu­sculus; saltus duriusculus; pathopoeia; hypotyposis

Accepted: March 25, 2025; Published: May 30, 2025  Show citation

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Čurda, M. (2025). Hudebně-rétorické figury: od teoretické Figurenlehre k hudební praxi. Musicologica Olomucensia, 37(1), 7-74. doi: 10.5507/mo.2025.010
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