The interdisciplinarity of rhetoric and its influence in colonial Brazilian music

Abstract: In certain music of the late sixteenth century to early nineteenth century, rhetoric shows itself as an indispensable component for its use, combined with grammar, as well as its adjustment in the musical structures of the time, to be understood and clarified within the musical statement. This process went through a systematization and theorization improved by several authors whose postulate was based on the masters of Classical Rhetoric, thus establishing a terminology known as Musica Poetica. Resulting from this methodology, several treatises highlighted the means by which music could be elaborated in a discourse organized and ordered by rhetorical elements aimed at eliciting and moving the affections of the listener. In this regard, the field of Music through musicology, performance and theory-analysis, in the last fifty years, has been showing interest in the subject developing countless researches through new analytical means, aimed at clarifying the relationship between music and affection. Therefore, this article intends to examine the use of rhetoric to dialogue with other areas of human knowledge, namely, Music, Philosophy and Hermeneutics, besides its influence and use in the Brazilian colonial music by some composers.