Rhetorical concepts and Mozart: elements of classical oratory in his drammi per musica

An understanding of the art of rhetoric was considered an essential part of a liberal arts education up until the Napoleonic wars of the early nineteenth century – not only for the well-to-do, but also for professional musicians and those employed in other art forms. While little documentation is now extant to provide us with information about the rhetorical training that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) received, we can surmise that much of Mozart’s knowledge in this area was transmitted through his father, Leopold (1719-1787), who had studied philosophy at the Benedictine University in Salzburg. This thesis will investigate whether it can be shown that Mozart continued the rhetorical tradition in music to portray the emotions expressed in the genre of dramma per musica. All but the last of Mozart’s works of this genre date prior to his residence in Vienna (from 1781) and show the influence of some of the most celebrated operatic composers of the day, such as Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782), Josef Mysliveček (1737-1781) and Niccolò Jommelli (1714-1774), as well as that of the influential ‘Mannheim school’ on his orchestral writing. This dissertation will examine ways in which rhetorical figures, musical form, tonality, harmonic texture, tones of voice and melodic lines may be understood as part of a rhetorical scheme used by Mozart and his contemporaries to convey emotions, or the ‘passions’, as they were commonly referred to during the eighteenth century. Rhetorical techniques and devices formed a tradition dating from the first performances of opera in the early seventeenth century; it will be argued that they continued to be the guiding principle for communicating expressiveness in Mozart’s drammi per musica, alongside their innovations in orchestral texture and in form. While Mozart’s operatic compositions have been subject to many types of analysis, the analytical methodology of this dissertation will be based on a study of compositional precepts of the period. It aims to show how Mozart, as a composer of the late eighteenth century, applied these concepts to his vocal compositions to illuminate through music the emotions, ideas and images expressed in the text.