The organizing function and the expressive quality of hebrew letters in Lasso’s "Lamentationes Jeremiae Prophetae”

Abstract

This article derives from a doctoral dissertation in which the composition written by Lasso that we cited above was completely analyzed. In order to do this, we adopted a musical-rhetorical guided methodology based on Joachim Burmeister’s fifth analytical category, i.e., “sectioning of the piece into affections or periods”. In order to show these affections it was necessary to identify the musical-rhetorical resources, mainly the resources that theorist calls figures or ornamenta. The skillful devices may also be observed in other Lasso’s compositions. It is notorious Lasso’s cleverness when he emphasizes the words and gives them emotive contents. Due to the extent of Lasso’s work we examine only the resources used in the sections of the Hebrew letters (originally the Lamentationes are in large part an alphabetical acrostic). The Hebrew letters can be found all through the composition and ensure an organizing function in the work. This analysis will not refer to Burmeister’s musical-rhetorical figures but it will deal with other resources in wich the composer shows his skill e.g. the melismatic treatment when associated to the text and the modal idiom that can help to represent the main affection of the work: the lamentation.