Music and Speech

So I'm currently reading "Resounding Truth" by Jeremy Begbie which is, frankly, very high-minded of me. Begbie is a professor of theology but also a fine pianist. I can personally attest to this having once heard him explain the doctrine of the Fall by playing the theme tune to The Simpsons.

Anyways.

In a chapter on Bach he discusses the influence of figurenslehre. Now I'm more of a Bach-arach than a Bach, J.S. man so this was completely new to me. In my defence, the tradition of figurenslehre or musica poetica originated with the Greeks, was developed in Germany and ain't really discussed much these days.

But the idea is this. Basically, in the same way that classical Rhetoric, the use of formal figures of speech, can be found in Shakespeare's verse, so too can the musical equivalent be found in the music of Bach.

Begbie explains it better:

"Figures were devices that were thought to give music a greater rhetorical force, analogous to the embellishments orators use to make their speeches more persuasive and drive their points home. For some time composers had enjoyed illustrating textual ideas and words with musical figures...If you wanted to 'say' something musically, you needed to know your figures." (p.131)

Nowadays if you need to "know your figures", there's even a helpful website.

Here's an even more interesting bit:

"Some figures are very closely allied to the sounds of speech. Pairs of notes, very close in pitch, were thought to heighten a sense of sighing or lamenting - think of the sound of a sigh...What we should not miss is that what drives this more than anything else is the assumed link between music and language. Not only did composers believe these devices worked like rhetorical gestures in speech but they also used the devices to drive home a meaning or emotion already conveyed by the words." (p.131-132)

In short, Bach was a songwriter. Of sorts.

My little theory has always been that the difference between, say, an operatic aria and a popular song is that in the aria, the music dominates. An aria may be concerned with the meaning of the words but a popular song is also concerned with the sound of the words. Hence there is a more equal relationship between words and music in a song.

However, if I understand the idea of figurenslehre correctly, it sounds as if my little theory may not hold. At least the relationship between music and the sound of words goes back much further than what I generally think of as popular song. As with philosophy, democracy and salad, the Greeks got there first.

This all put me in mind of two questions about musicals.

QUESTION 1. When I was doing a spot of research on Billie Holiday I came across a quote in this essay from the music critic Gene Lees who described Holiday's style as conversational rather than oratorical. I think I know what he means. I'd suggest that most musical theatre singers are oratorical in their singing style. So is it possible to sing in a musical in a conversational style?

QUESTION 2. Is lyric writing closest in form to writing speeches? I suspect there may be something to this. There's a certain rhythm to speech-writing. There's usually repetition of key phrases (like a song title) and there's a concision, trying to capture an idea with a simple and clear message. Also I seem to remember the author Robert Harris describe political speeches as "verbalised emotion" which, for sheer pithiness, is a pretty good description of a song.

Answers on a postcard, please.