The art of the unspoken : rhetorical devices, linguistic parallels and the influence of the singing voice in classical and romantic piano literature /

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Includes bibliographical references and index.The Relationship between Language and Instrumental Music in the Eighteenth and the Nineteenth Centuries -- Rhetoric and its Echoes in Musical Composition and Performance -- The Survival of Rhetorical Figures from J. S. Bach to Liszt -- Dramatic and Poetic Influences -- The Singing Voice as Natural Model -- An Integrated Approach to Performance Training."This book focuses on the influence of rhetoric, dramatic concepts, and the singing voice in Classical and Romantic solo piano music. These traditions were shared by composers, performers and pedagogues but have gradually fallen into obscurity. Rhetoric provides a guide for logical organization and persuasion, dramatic plot and character influence form and musical content, while singing offers a natural model for expression and inflection. Historical and aesthetic information along with literary and musical aspects are presented here to inform current performance practice. Composers consciously employed rhetorical figures and expected performers to recognize and apply them in performance. Thinking of music in terms of plot and character cultivates habits of purposeful direction and clear definition of individual thematic material. Literary comparisons incite the imagination and can be useful in addressing more complex aesthetic issues, such as 'organic' quality in art, the concept of unity in diversity, memory, evolution and incompleteness. The desire to achieve vocal expressivity on the keyboard predates all the technical developments of the piano. These concepts have practical application to modern performance training, and a wider pianistic pedagogical context is explored in the final chapter, advocating for an integrated and meaningful approach to performance"--