Larghetto for oboe (combining schemata and rhetorics)

Hi friends,

This is an example of what I want to do in my new blog. In this little piece, there is an intertwined work of schemata and rhetoric figures. I have spoken previously about schemata, and they are notated at the bottom of the systems. Now, I have added some rhetoric figures, that will be explained in detail in the blog.

Anaphora is the repetition of a structure at the beginning of several phrases.

Hyperbaton is a change in the order of the notes.

Chiasmus is the mirrored repetition of a motive or phrase.

Pleonasm is the addition of "superfluous" elements.

Anadiplosis is the repetition of a part which was the end of a phrase in the beginning of a the next.

Epizeuxis is the repetition of something in the middle of a phrase

Concatenation and gradation are similar to climax-anticlimax.

Pathopoeia is the expression of an idea with chromaticism.

[with time, I will translate into English the entries about schemata]

Let me say that writing music this way is an adventure. Funny and instructive. And, surely, is the essence of baroque-galant music. And there's more to say: this is nothing "mechanical". When you get familiar with the process, it becomes natural, as it happens when you write in the romanticism style or dodecaphonic of whatever. In the end, this devices had a purpose: to convey emotions.

Sorry for the engraving it's not the best, but I wanted to keep the phrases together.

Hi @Luis Hernández,

I love how you combine the rhetoric with the schemata! This becomes really interesting here. Using linguistic and literary techniques on music can for sure create some interesting effects we have never thought of before!

5 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

Let me say that writing music this way is an adventure. Funny and instructive. And, surely, is the essence of baroque-galant music. And there's more to say: this is nothing "mechanical". When you get familiar with the process, it becomes natural, as it happens when you write in the romanticism style or dodecaphonic of whatever. In the end, this devices had a purpose: to convey emotions.

This is for sure a funny adventure. We all have to deliberately use some techniques in order to get familiar with it and use it later naturally, just like learning to write counterpoint, learning harmonic progressions, special chords, all learning begins with deliberately using it and natural usage with emotions means you have mastered the technique.

5 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

Sorry for the engraving it's not the best, but I wanted to keep the phrases together.

I love your engraving here!

Thanks for sharing as always!!

Henry

I like the techniques you introduce in this piece!  It's definitely a good way to teach your fellow composers here about them and I feel like I've learned a lot!  It's too bad you don't use the anaphora as the beginning of more different kinds of varied phrases besides just the two at the beginning.  I think the hyperbaton is quite an ingenious idea - I think I might have used it sometimes in some of my variations pieces where I fragment the theme and mix up the fragments in a different order.  The chiasmus is also a cool idea - my take on it is that it's a retrograde of a fragment of the melody - you use it quite well!  I've read your explanation and looked at your score but I don't think I quite understand what a pleonasm is yet.  The technique of anadiplosis I imagine would be quite useful in combination with elision which is where the end of a phrase serves also as the beginning of the next.  The way you use epizeuxis seems like just a descending sequence but I'm not sure if there is a way of using epizeuxis that isn't synonymous with sequencing.  I am quite puzzled by your use of the term concatenation in this context.  Usually, I'd expect concatenation to refer to splicing together of two unrelated ideas, but I take it that's not the meaning you use here.  I'm wondering whether by pathopoeia you might not mean variations of pre-existing material but with chromatic elements interjected in between the diatonic ones.  Thanks for sharing!  It is very useful and enlightening to know the names of these techniques!

@PeterthePapercomPoser Have in mind that all these figures are open to interpretation, since they are taken from the speech and/or written discourse.This is just a first little example of what can be done with rhetorics in music. Being that, an example, I don't make it long. When I write pieces with "pedagogic" purposes, I make them short, focusing on the concepts. Surely the piece would be different and richer if it would have been written with "artistic" intention.

On the other hand, here there are concise definitions of the figures, I will explain them better in the blog.

Hi enjoyed your score plentyful! I was also fond of your orchestral score.

Keep composing