The Discursive Construction of D. Buxtehude: Analysis of the musical-rhetorical figures in the three arias of the Cantata Ad Manus (BuxWV 75/3)

Abstract

Musica poetica emerged as a new understanding of music in the Lutheran reformed regions between the 16th and 18th centuries. This new way of thinking about music sought to systematically relate aspects of the rhetorical discipline to the compositional act. This article seeks to evidence how these ideals and systems were concretely inserted into the music composition. To this end, we will analyze the construction of Dieterich Buxtehude's cantata Ad Manus (75/3). In this analysis, we will focus on the prominence of the text as the guiding principle for the discursive construction of the entire cantata. In the analysis of musical excerpts from the three arias of the work, we will mainly observe the use of musical rhetorical figures and their relationship with the sung text. In this way, we attempt to conclude and emphasize that the discursive construction of the cantata Ad Manus is a perceptible example of the way in which the rhetorical, theological, and musical ideals present in the treatises of musica poetica are expressed in musical composition.