CHAPTER SIXTEEN THE ENARGEIA OF MUSIC IN THEORY AND PRACTICE Although in Aristotle’s Poetics music is not considered a mimetic art, musical rhetoric also makes use of the enargeia of representation, albeit not primarily under this label. The German humanist Joachim Burmeis- ter (1566–1629) defines the terminological equivalent hypotyposis in his Musica Poetica (1606) as follows: Hypotyposis est illud ornamentum, quô textus significatio ita deumbratur, ut ea, quæ textui subsunt & animam vitamq; non habent, vita esse prædita, videantur. Hoc ornamentum usitatißimum est apud authenticos Artifices. Vti- nam eâdem dexteritate ab omnibus adhiberetur Componistis.1 Hypotyposis is that ornament through which the meaning of a (song) text is elucidated in such a way that the basic words, which have no soul and no life, seem to become filled with life. This ornament is commonly used by authentic artists. If only it were skillfully applied by all composers! For Burmeister therefore hypotyposis is an important figure for giving a song text a sensory presence. As an example he cites a composition by Orlando di Lasso: “Benedicam Domino [. .]”, and in doing so claims that pathopoeia is particularly suited to producing affects: “Pathopoeia [. .] est figura apta ad affectus creandos.”2 Other music theorists of the time do 1 Joachim Burmeister, Musica Poetica: Definitionibus et divisionibus breviter delineata. Rostochii Excudebat Stephanus Myliander, Anno M.DC.VI. Facsimile ed. with introd. by Ph. Kallenberger. Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 22007, p. 62.—Dietrich Bartel, Musica Poetica: Musical-Rhetorical Figures in German Baroque Music. Lincoln / London: University of Nebraska Press, 1997, p. 307 makes on this figure the following comment: “The hypotyposis is given the same task in music as in rhetoric: to vividly and realistically illustrate a thought or image found in the text. As such it might even be considered the most important and common text-expressive compositional device of Baroque music, for it is musica poetica’s mandate to delight and move the listener through a musical presentation of the text. Such musical word painting becomes the hallmark of Baroque music, being found in virtually every Baroque vocal composition.” 2 Burmeister, Musica Poetica, p. 61.—On the subject of musical affections cf. Luca Mar- coni, “Emotional Responses and Musical Signification: Ancient and Modern Theories on the Effects of Music”, in: Musical Signification, Between Rhetoric and Pragmatics / La Signifi- cazione Musicale tra Retorica e Pragmatica. Ed. Gino Stefani, Eero Tarasti & Luca Marconi. Bologna: CLUEB, 1998, pp. 29–38; Claude V. Palisca, Music and Ideas in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Urbana / Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006, chap. 10: “Theo- ries of the Affections and Imitation” (pp. 179–202). 184 chapter sixteen Figure 18. Claudio Monteverdi, Orfeo (1609): title-page of the score not include hypotyposis in their list of figures, but do mention such means of representation as produce affects.3 Enargeia plays an important role, for example, in the laments (lamenti) of the protagonist and the choruses of Claudio Monteverdi’s opera Orfeo (1607)4 as well as in the famous Lamento d’Arianna from his opera Ari- anna with the libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini (1562–1621). The latter work was premiered on May 28th, 1608 for the festivities of Prince Francesco’s marriage to Margherita of Savoy. The scene of the 3 Cf. Bartel, Musica Poetica: Musical-rhetorical Figures in German Baroque Music, p. 308. 4 Cf. F.W. Sternefeld, The Birth of Opera. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995 (1993), chap. 6: “The Lament” (pp. 140–196).—The complaint of the protagonist is to be found in numer- ous Orpheus compositions of the Early Modern Age, such as in Jacopo Peri (1581–1633), Giulio Caccini (1551–1618), Stefano Landi (1587–1639), and Marc Antoine Charpentier (1643–1704)—cf. the audio-CD Il Pianto d’Orfeo with works of the composers mentioned (NCA New Classical Adventure-ISBN 3-86562-492-8[EAN CODE 4 019272 60 1422]). .