Figure (music) [figurenlehre]

A figure is an elementary, musical turn of melodic, harmonic, or compositional style. Later, a musical figure
theory of expression develops.

Table of Contents
 1 word origin and conceptual history
 2 figure theory
 3 Historical Overview
o 3.1 Joachim Burmeister
o 3.2 Athanasius Kircher
o 3.3 Christoph Bernhard
o 3.4 Johann Mattheson
o 3.5 Other authors
 4 Relationships between figurine catalogs
 5 Figure theory as a musicological model in the 20th century
 6 examples
 7 The most important historical sources of figure theory (chronologically ordered)
 8 See also
 9 literature

Word Source and Conceptual History

The term figura ( Latin for figure) in the Middle Ages referred to a single musical sign (also called nota ),
which was later extended to whole groups of notes and phrases. The term is often applied to subthematic
elements that have little or no thematic substance. These include u. a. typical patterns for accompaniment parts
(eg Alberti-Bass ), sometimes called accompaniment figures . From figure one speaks then also in the
Kontrapunktik (eg Inversion , cancer ).

The figurative figure is used for the first time in reference to the figural music of the 14th-16th centuries.
Century.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, various German music theorists dealt with musical-rhetorical figures whose
designation was oriented towards traditional rhetoric . Frequent, particularly striking or contradictory musical
expressions were thereby named with rhetorical (or the rhetoric modeled) terms. Today, these figurative
catalogs are summarized under the term "figure theory ".

Figure theory
The theory of figures in the (German) music theory of the 17th and 18th centuries, the combination of certain
musical twists to catalogs of so-called musical-rhetorical figures whose design was based on traditional
rhetoric, either directly or originally rhetorical terms for musical twists adopted or own names related to
rhetoric were invented. For the early authors of figurative teachings, the new compositional techniques and
genres developed in Italy in the second half of the 16th century ( madrigal , opera ) were of particular
importance. Certain features of this new style were no longer explainable by conventional counterpoint rules
and were justified by the requirement to musically represent the meaning of the text. At least the early catalogs
are therefore also a reaction to the new compositional techniques introduced in madrigal and opera and the
intensified textual treatment. These compositional abnormalities were systematically recorded and endorsed
with terms that were analogous to the area of musical notation at the time of rhetoric . The scope, content and
motivation of these figurative catalogs vary depending on the author. A uniform tradition of musical-rhetorical
figures did not exist.

Since all authors of music theoretical works, in which a musical figure theory is mentioned, come from the
German-speaking world, one must speak of a local special development. Whether these figurative catalogs were
actually taken over by composers as a model for the design of their works is questionable. Primarily, the figures
represented an analytical tool of their inventors.

The first music theorists to deal with the classification of musical figures were Joachim Burmeister (
Hypomnematum musicae poeticae , 1599, Musica autoschediastike , 1601, Musica poetica , 1606), Johannes
Nucius ( Musices poeticae , 1613), Athanasius Kircher ( Musurgia universalis , 1650).

Historical Overview
Joachim Burmeister

The first known musical figure theory was developed by Joachim Burmeister and found its final form in his
1606 Musica Poetica . The entire twelfth chapter is dedicated to the characters. The term "figure" is defined by
Burmeister as follows:

"Ornamentum sive Figura musica est tractus musicus, tam in Harmonia quam in Melodia, certa periodo, quae a
clausula initium sumit, et in clausulam desinit, circumscriptus, qui a simplici compositionis ratione discedit, &
cum virtute ornatiorem habitum assumit & induit"

"Ornament or figure is a musical movement confined to a certain section - in harmony as well as in melody -
which begins with a claus and ends in a clause that deviates from the simple way of composition and adopts a
more ornamented attitude with virtue and appropriates. "

- J. Burmeister : Musica Poetica, p. 55

Burmeister distinguishes between harmonic, melodic and harmonic-melodic figures. Although he gives
examples of such figures, he also notes that it is not possible to formulate rules for the formation of figures,
because:

"Siquidem varietas omnium cuiusque magna et multiplex apud auctores deprehenditus, ut vix numerum eorum
nobis liceat indagare."

"Their diversity is so great and so great among composers that it is scarcely possible for us to determine their
numbers."

- J. Master : Musica Poetica, p. 56

According to Burmeister, in principle infinitely many figures are possible. Figures are what constitutes the
individuality of a composer's work and compositional style. For Burmeister, figure theory is an analytical tool
for understanding and describing how composers design the musical material. Burmeister's figurative concept is
semantically largely neutral. This does not exclude a text-interpretive use, but the figure itself is not bound to
specific textual content (Burmeister omits the accompanying text in all examples). Two special figures are
provided for text-interpretative or affective musical sections, namely the Hypotyposis (representation of the text
content) and the Pathopoeia (representation of the affect that a passage of text expresses). Through this
separation of textual and compositional (compositional) definition of the figures, the use of figures and their
(always possible) interpretation remains flexibly applicable to the specific musical situation. Burmeister
integrates his musical and rhetorical figures into a still-sounding rhyme model. Each contrapuntal sentence type
is assigned a style term:

Musical types of notes and rhetorical styles in Burmeister

Sentence type style characteristics figuren
simplex humile small intervals, only consonances No
fractum mediocre little dissonance and big intervals Yes
coloratum sublime more big intervals and dissonances Yes
- mixtum Mix of the top three styles Yes

The genus simplex is the unadorned, largely homophonic, four-part Kantional movement (song-like setting) .
Since this simple type of sentence is little more than the extension of a choral melody by three accompaniment
parts, which strictly follow the counterpoint rules, there are no figures in this type of sentence. However, this
type of sentence itself can become a figure (Noema), namely when it is inserted into a sentence that otherwise
has a more complex sentence type.

In addition, Burmeister endeavors to assign authors to the various styles who represent a particular style in a
particularly exemplary manner and are therefore recommended by Burmeister for imitation. This shows another
element that Burmeister has adopted from the tradition of classical rhetoric: the study of exemplary speakers or
authors was an important tool in rhetorical education. At the same time, the naming of author names reveals a
fundamental problem of the transfer of rhetorical terms and methods to music. The authors, whom Burmeister
calls (above all Orlando di Lasso), all date from the 16th century and represent a compositional style that at the
time (shortly after 1600) was already obsolete and obsolete in much of Europe and soon as a style antico was
designated. Burmeister's efforts to isolate stylistic traits and to codify them by citing idols are being undone by
this rapid style change.

Athanasius Kircher

With the Musurgia Universalis (1650) Athanasius Kircher created a unique compendium of musical knowledge
at that time. Although Kircher places the emphasis on the numerical in music (ie the music is still placed in the
medieval system of the septem artes liberales ), he also mentions musical-rhetorical figures, but only briefly at
two widely spaced places in the 5th and 8th book , Kircher defines the figures analogously to rhetoric and
emphasizes their affect effect:

"Figurae in Musurgia nostra idem sunt praestantque, quod [...] varii modi dicendi in Rhetorica. Quemadmodum
enim Rhetor artificioso troporum contextu Auditorem movet nunc ad risum modo ad planctum [...] ita and
Musica artificioso clausularum sive periodorum harmonicarum contextu. "

"The characters in our music are and perform the same [...] as the various phrases in the rhetoric. Just as the
rhetorician uses elaborate tropes to make the listener laugh, complain [...], so does the music with elaborate
clauses or harmonious periods. "

- A. Kircher : Musurgia Universalis, p. 366

Kircher has taken his figures largely from the works of Johannes Nucius (1613) and Joachim Thuringus (1624).
Following these models, Kircher divides the figures into two groups:

1. Three figurae principales : commissura (fast, gradual ascending or descending notes), syncopatio
(rhythmic displacement) and fuga (a musical section set as a fugue conditioned by the text). They will
be discussed in the 5th book.
2. Twelve figurae minus principalis : u. a. Repetition (repetition of a section to give it greater emphasis -
suitable for violent passions such as wildness) and Climax (a gradual rise - suitable for expressing love
and longing). They are defined in the 8th book. Strangely enough, there is also a short list of the 12
figures in Book 5, which does not agree with the figures defined in Book 8.

Overall, Kircher draws closely in these sections to Thuringus (number and division of the figures agree), but
emphasizes the effect of affective effect stronger than its predecessor. This is particularly evident in the figurae
minus principalis , in which Kircher explicitly mentions the affect expression for each figure.

Nevertheless, the characters obviously only play a minor role for Kircher and are more than just assimilated
into his cosmological music conception. The division of the figure definitions into two widely separated parts
of the Musurgia Universalis and the generally quite concise explanations of the figures reinforce this
impression. In the German (partial) translation of the Musurgia Universalis by Andreas Hirsch (1662), the
relevant sections on the musical figures are significantly missing.

Since Kirchers Musurgia Universalis belonged to the standard works of the then music literature until the 18th
century, his figure theory, despite its modest size had a great influence on most of the later authors who dealt
with musical-rhetorical figures.

Christoph Bernhard
The system of types of sentences with Christoph Bernhard

The figure theory of Christoph Bernhard is of particular importance because it is the only source written by a
reasonably important composer. From about the 16th century, there were more and more dissonances in music,
which according to the counterpoint rules would not have been allowed, especially in the genres Madrigal and
(a little later) opera. Often these foul dissonances were justified by the need to effectively represent the content
of the text sung (a famous example being the criticism of Giovanni Artusi of Monteverdi's dissonance treatment
and Monteverdi's justification for it). At this point, Bernhard starts, but he tries to integrate the rule violations as
supplements and exceptions in the counterpoint. All of Bernhard's characters are aimed at dealing with
dissonances that would not be allowed in the strict contrapuntal sentence:

"Figuram I call a certain way to use the dissonant, that they are not alone not disgusting, but rather acceptable
and show the composer art."

- Ch. Bernhard : Tractatus Compositionis Augmentatus, Cap. 16 §3

Thus, Bernhard's figures represent extensions and exceptions to the contrapuntal sentence rules. This is also
clear from the fact that in addition to the figure examples always a corrected version is also specified, which
was adapted to the counterpoint rules. Like Burmeister, Bernhard also distributes his figures to different styles,
but also abandons the assignment of rhetorical styles to the types of sentences. Instead, Bernhard distributes the
figures to the different types of sentences.
The contrapunctus aequalis is a dissonanceless set without figures. On the other hand there is the
contrapunctus inaequalis , which contains dissonances and can also have figures. The contrapunctus inaequalis
is again divided into two groups: the stylus gravis and the stylus luxurians .

The stylus gravis is the counterpoint style of the "old" (ie the predecessor of Bernhard and his contemporaries)
and contains four figures. The stylus luxurians is the counterpoint style of the "modern" generation, which is
more dissonant than the stylus gravis and therefore needs more figures to justify these dissonances. It is again
divided into two subgroups, namely the stylus communis (with 15 figures) and the stylus theatralis (with 8
figures). In particular, the figures of the stylus theatralis should be suitable for affective excitement (hence their
name, because of this characteristic they are particularly suitable for operas). The list of figures does not
necessarily have to be conclusive. So Bernhard z. For example, note that there are more figures in the stylus
theatralis than in the stylus communis . But he only counts about half as many figures on the stylus theatralis as
on the stylus communis .

In addition, there are also the so-called figurae superficiales , which are formed from four figures each of the
stylus communis and stylus theatralis . The term superficiales (superficial) may come from the fact that these
figures do not come from music theory (that is, they do not rest on a theoretical foundation), but were taken
from musical practice.

Johann Mattheson

In the first half of the 18th century, the last actual figurine catalogs appear. Although Johann Mattheson still
mentions figures, he gives hardly any precise definitions for them. Even in the Perfect Capellmeister of 1739,
Johann Mattheson does not attach much importance to the definition of musical figures, which in the end no
longer correspond to his sensualistic music image. However, he mentions the possibility of depicting rhetorical
figures in music as well:

"The room and our purpose do not grant it, otherwise it would be easy to introduce here the 12 words
characters, including the 17 spell figures, and see how many and which among them send out a melody."

- J. Mattheson : The Perfect Capellmeister, p. 243

Mattheson puts much emphasis on the statement that rhetoric and music have the same goals and also
analogous ways of composing or writing a speech. But there are also other parallels between language and
music, especially in phrasing: Mattheson describes a hierarchical phrasing model that uses grammatical terms
such as point, comma, exclamation point, etc. Hence the notion of sonority that Mattheson introduced to music.
For Mattheson, music is not just a tool to clarify a text, but music in his opinion, a specific musical message.
The way this content is conveyed is similar to speech, but the content itself is not necessarily linguistic. Thus,
Mattheson is one of the first who begins to understand music as an autonomous art, which is perfect by itself,
and not only by sounding of language their real reason of existence.

Other authors

The treatises of other authors are usually of minor importance for the figure theory. Mostly, they lean heavily
on one of the three authors described in more detail above (up to the literal adoption of figure definitions). In
some cases this is due to the lexical claim of the author (eg Johann Gottfried Walther and Janowka).

Noteworthy is John Nucius, to which the subdivision of the figures in figurae principales and figurae minus
principales goes back, which were later adopted by Kircher (mediated by Thuringus) and Bernhard's distinction
between figurae fundamental and figurae superficiales seems influenced by the idea of Nucius (although the
figure stock, which is grouped under the terms, is not identical).

While most authors not only know the names of figurines inherited from rhetoric, but also use new names for
specific musical figures, Ahle and Scheibe limit themselves to mapping the linguistic figures to the music.
Sometimes the boundaries between "simple" manners (eg trills) and "real" characters (eg Meinrad Spieß ) are
blurred.

The last representative of figure theory is often Johann Nikolaus Forkel . He mentions in his 1788 published
history of music again rhetorical musical figures, but quite vague and superficial, and only in the introduction.
As with Mattheson, the analogy of the structures of speeches and pieces of music seems to be more important to
Forkel than the implementation of rhetorical figures in music. But even this aspect eventually takes a back seat,
because in the second half of the 18th century, the new hermeneutic explanatory model displaces the rhetoric of
art theory. In many recent musicological publications on figure theory Forkel is therefore no longer listed in the
list of authors with figure teachings.

Relationships between the Figurative Catalogs

Schematic representation of the relationships between the figure catalogs

Although especially Johann Gottfried Walther's music lexicon can claim a certain meaning beyond the figure
theme for himself, Bernhard, Kircher and Burmeister apparently had the greatest aftereffect for the figure
theory.

The adjacent diagram shows the relationships between the figurative catalogs of the various authors (without
claim to completeness), based on the descriptions by Bartel (1997) and Klassen (2001). The solid lines show
secured relationships, dotted lines indicate insecure or only weak relationships. Some special cases are also
considered.

Awl and disc see in the musical figures only "translations" of the actually rhetorical figures. Disc also has a
relatively close reference to Johann Christoph Gottsched's Critical Poetry , which is already evident in the title
of his work (The Critical Music) .

Wolfgang Caspar Printz also occupies a special position by deriving his musical figures largely from the
decorative art of musical performance practice and often gives these characters Italian names (usually Latin or
Greek names were used).

The graph clearly shows how strong Kircher's influence has been on the following authors: Most authors after
1650 refer to Kircher in their figure teachings. This may also be related to the fact that Kirch's music theory
work was by far the best-known of all the authors mentioned here, whose significance went far beyond the
doctrine of figures (which Kircher treated relatively superficially).

The special position of Johann Gottfried Walther is also clearly recognizable: in accordance with his lexical
claim, he makes use of most of the manuscript catalogs available at the time. Johann Mattheson is clearly
separated from the other authors.

The missing arrows from other authors to Mattheson explain themselves on the one hand by the fact that he
defines no figures and on the other hand by a significantly changed attitude towards the music and the
relationship between rhetoric and music. Especially with regard to Mattheson is here again to note that the
graph refers only to the figure teachings. Mattheson has certainly known the writings of most of the authors
mentioned here, but appears here isolated from the other authors, as he defines no figures.

The figure theory as a musicological model in the 20th century

Arnold Schering published 1908 the essay The doctrine of the musical figures in the church music yearbook. In
it he stated that the composition theory of the 16.-18. Century oriented itself strongly on the rhetoric. Central
part of these teachings was the figure theory. The musical figures are to be aids to the interpretation of the text
in works of the musical Baroque, thus quasi a "key" to the semantic deciphering of the music of this epoch. In
the decades that followed, Schering's suggestions were taken up by other musicologists, and it seemed that
figure theory was becoming a standard tool for analyzing works by Baroque composers, and in some cases even
beyond, works by both the 16th and 19th centuries. century. With the article on musical-rhetorical figures by
Arnold Schmitz in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (4th volume, 1954), the theory of figures was
included in one of the most important reference works for musicologists. Musical figures were no longer
understood only as a text interpretation in vocal music, but also transferred the derived "meanings" of the
figures partly on the instrumental music.

In the second half of the 20th century, doubts arose about the actual existence of a unified, or in the 17th and
18th centuries constantly evolving figure theory. Increased attention was drawn to deficiencies and
contradictions, i. a. to the following:

 The inconsistency of the different figure teachings: The definitions of the figurative concept, as well as
systematics and classification of the individual figures differ in some cases substantially. Even the
figurative catalogs show great differences. No single author even counts approximately the
approximately 150 figures that you get when you count the characters of all authors together. The
summary of the figure teachings of the Baroque authors with their partly overlapping or contradictory
 definitions of figures to a "super figure theory" is therefore not convincing content and
methodologically questionable.
 There are no sources for figure theory whose author does not come from German-speaking countries.
 Many influential German music theorists from the period between 1600 and 1750 (eg Seth Calvisius,
Johann Andreas Herbst, Andreas Werckmeister) lose no word about a figure theory in their works.
 Of the more than 200 music tracts written during this time in German-speaking countries alone, only
about 15 musically-rhetorical figures are mentioned. If one counts the lexical-oriented and other works,
which only list the figurative catalogs of earlier authors, then there are even fewer left, which integrate
an independent figure theory. This does not indicate an intense occupation with the topic.
 While musical phrases may be used to interpret the text and / or affect the emotions, standardizing these
phrases would quickly erode the effect and replace them.

Accordingly, the various treatises in which musical-rhetorical figures are presented represent a regionally
limited, specifically German special development. The exact reasons leading to this development are unclear.

Despite all these reservations, the article Music and Rhetoric in the new edition of Music in Past and Present is
in the tradition of Schering's interpretation of the theory of figures and even extends its sphere of influence into
the 19th century. It is interesting that in the 20th century, too, it is predominantly German authors who deal
with musical-rhetorical figures. The relatively few non-German authors often adopt a critical attitude towards
the complex of topics.

Nevertheless, Schering's conception of a unified baroque figure theory had lasting effects on the analysis
method of Baroque music. She initiated the exploration of new areas of Baroque music and was in the 20th
century a - at least in German musicology - popular explanatory model. Some terms have also established
themselves outside the context of figure theory as technical terms (eg, the passus duriusculus). It should not be
forgotten that the discussions about the theory of figures ultimately led to the fact that the relationship between
rhetoric and music in the Baroque was better researched and understood.

Examples
There are over 150 rhetorical figures. Below are some of the most important ones:

 Abruptio (Latin break): abrupt termination of the sentence.

 Anabasis (Ascension) or Ascensus (Latin ascent): an upwardly leading musical line.
 Analepsis: A figure is repeated several times at the same pitch.
 Anaphora : A character is repeated several times but not regularly.
 Anticipatio : bringing forward a tone of following harmony.
 Antitheton : Comparative juxtaposition of two opposing aspects (for example, major minor).
 Apocope (gr. Apokopé , truncation, omission) or abruptio (lat. Fracture): abrupt termination of a melody
or a movement.
 Apocope in the word "dreads" in soprano I, II and tenor
 Aposiopesis : General pause , expresses as death dying, sleeping or silence.
 Cadentia Duriuscula : "the hard end" (Cadentia from Latin cadere: to fall, Duriuscula from Latin durus:
hard, outrageous): A subdominant-seventh sound before the dominant of the cadence , z. T. even with
large seventh, so a dissonance in the usual final formula. It is a purely musical figure, which can only be
found in the figure theory of Christoph Bernhard.
 Circulatio (Latin circulus , circle, ring): a circular figure, which is intended to express a circular,
encircling movement, but also domination, crown.
 Dubitatio (Latin dubitare: doubt, hesitate, hesitate) is expressed by a dubious modulation or by a
standstill.
 Emphasis : A group of figures that affirm a statement through repetition.
 Exclamatio (Latin exclamation): according to Johann Gottfried Walther (1732) a leap of a small sixth
upwards, in general practice, however, jumps up and down from the interval of a third
 Extensio (Latin extension): refers to the extension of a dissonance sound beyond its normal duration.
 Fauxbourdon : refers to successive third-sixth sounds that indicate wrong or sinful.
 Heterolepsis : Sequence of tones that belong to different voices from a contrapuntal point of view.
 Homoioteleuton (gr. Hómoios , similar, gr. Teleute , end) or homoioptoton (gr. Ptosis , case, case): a
general pause that was used in dialogues and in questions of arousal of attention.
 Interrogatio (lat. Ask, question): a rising melodic figure that was used to denote a question.
 Katabasis (large descent) or Descensus (Latin descent): a descending musical line to underline the
humiliation.
 Klimax : Multiple increasing repetition at a higher level.
 Metalepsis : This figure refers to a fuga in which at least two voices that are used at the same time or at
a certain distance present different motives. These are taken from the other voices and alternately
varied.
 Noema (music) (gr. Thought): a homophonic section in a polyphonic piece to highlight a passage of text.
 Passus duriusculus (Latin: hard / heavy gait): a chain of descending semitones.
 Pathopoeia (gr. Pathos , suffering, gr. Poíesis , education): Non-conductor sounds, as text-related
figures, excite affections (pain or passion). Example: Passus duriusculus , a chromatically ascending or
descending line, usually in the space of a fourth (also known as " lamento- bass", see lamento ), unusual
steps (great second ), or saltus duriusculus , a large, unusual, mostly-falling, leap ( diminished fourth,
diminished fifth , minor seventh ), which represents "falsehood".
 Suspiratio (Latin: presiritus , sighing, groaning) or Stenasmos (gr. Stenós , narrow): the musical line is
interrupted by eighth or sixteenth pauses.
 Syncopatio (Greek: beat together, slaughter, hammer, forge, together, at the same time): rhythmic
shifting of the regular measure or clock order.
 Tirata (Italian tirare , draw): Sequence of gradual ascending or descending notes of the same note value.
 Transitus (Latin transire , transcend, pass over): transit dissonance that connects consonances.
However, not all musical figures were designated by their own term. For example, in Burmeister , hypotyposis
(gr. Hypó , below, gr. Typos , form, gestalt) means any figure that clarifies the meaning of the text.

The most important historical sources for figure theory

(chronologically ordered)
 Joachim Burmeister: Hypomnematum musicae poeticae . Rostock, 1599.
 like: Musica autoschediastike . Rostock, 1601.
 like: Musica poetica . Rostock, 1606.
 Johannes Nucius: Musices poeticae sive de compositione cantus . Neisse, 1613.
 Joachim Thuringus: Opusculum bipartitum de primordiis musicis . Berlin, 1624.
 Athanasius Kircher: Musurgia universalis . Rome, 1650.
 Elias Walther: Dissertation Musica . Tübingen, 1664.
 Christoph Bernhard: Tractatus compositionis augmentatus . Dating uncertain: after 1657.
 see: Detailed report on the use of Con- and Dissonantien . Dating uncertain: after 1663.
 Wolfgang Caspar Printz: Phrynis Mytilenaeus or Satyrischer Componist . Dresden / Leipzig, 1696.
 Johann Georg Ahle: Musicalisches spring, summer, autumn, and winter talks . Mulhouse, 1695-1701.
 Thomas Balthasar Janowka: Clavis ad thesaurum magnae artis musicae . Prague, 1701.
 Mauritius Johann Vogt: Conclave thesauri magnae artis musicae . Prague, 1719.
 Johann Gottfried Walther: Praecepta of musical composition , 1708.
 ders .: Musicalisches Lexicon, or Musicalische Bibliothec . Leipzig, 1732.
 Johann Mattheson: The perfect capellmeister . Hamburg, 1739.
 Meinrad Spiess: Tractatus musicus compositorio-practicus . Augsburg, 1745.
 Johann Adolf Scheibe: The Critical Musicus . Leipzig, 1745.
 Johann Nikolaus Forkel: General History of Music . Göttingen, 1788.

See also
 Symbol (music)
 doctrine of affections
 Interpretation (music)
 motive
 soggetto
 rhetoric

Literature
 Dietrich Bartel: Handbook of musical figure theory. 4. rev. Edition. Laaber, Laaber 1997, ISBN 3-
89007-340-9 .
 Wolfgang Budday: Musical figures as compositional freedoms in Bach's organ chorale "Through
Adam's case is completely corrupted". In: Hans-Joachim-Schulze, Christian Wolff (ed.): Bach
Yearbook. Volume 63, 1977, p. 139 ff.
 Carl Dahlhaus: The Figurae superficiales in the treatises of Christoph Bernhard. In: Wilfried Brennecke
et al. (Ed.): Report on the International Musicological Congress Bamberg 1953 (= Congress Report
Bamberg 1953. ) Bärenreiter, Kassel 1954, pp. 135-138.
 Carl Dahlhaus: Musica poetica and musical poetry . In: Archive for Musicology . 23, 1966, pp. 110-124.
 Carl Dahlhaus: Seconda pratica and musical figure theory. In: Ludwig Finscher (ed.): Claudio
Monteverdi - Festschrift Reinhold Hammerstein 70th Birthday. Laaber, Laaber 1986, pp. 141-151.
 Rolf Dammann: The concept of music in German Baroque. Volk, Cologne 1967, ISBN 3-89007-015-9 .
 Walther Dürr: Language and Music - History, Generations, Analysis Models. Bärenreiter, Kassel 1994,
ISBN 3-7618-1153-5 .
 Arno Forchert : Bach and the tradition of rhetoric. In: Dietrich Berke (ed.): Early music as an aesthetic
present - Bach. Handel. Contactor. Report on the International Congress of Musicology Stuttgart 1985.
Volume 1. Bärenreiter, Kassel 1987, pp. 169-178.
 Andreas Hirsch: Philosophical Extract and Excerpt from the World-Famous Teutsche Jesuit Athanasii
Kircheri by Fulda Musurgia Universali in Six Books written. Schwäbisch Hall 1662. (reprint in:
Melanie Wald (ed.): Athanasius Kircher: Musurgia universalis Schwäbisch Hall 1662. reprint of the
German translation by Andreas Hirsch 1662. Bärenreiter, Kassel 2006, ISBN 3-7618-1869-6 ).
 Janina Klassen: Musica Poetica and musical figure theory - a productive misunderstanding. In: Günter
Wagner (ed.): Yearbook of the State Institute for Music Research Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Metzler,
Stuttgart 2001, pp. 73-83.
 Hartmut Krones : Music and Rhetoric. In: Ludwig Finscher (ed.): The music in history and present.
Volume 7. 2. re-cultivation. Output. Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel from 1994, Sp. 814-852.
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