O Lugar-Comum Arte-Natureza em Der Vollkommene Capellmeister ("O Mestre de Capela Perfeito", 1739), de Johann Mattheson

ABSTRACT:

The Lutheran world produced an extensive theoretical and practical framework for musical composition, interpretation, and analysis. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the authors of what became known as musica poetica published manuals whose systematic, theoretical, and terminological bases were borrowed from Latin rhetorics and poetics (which were required readings in all Lutheran schools after Luther and Melanchthon's reforms of 1528). In this article, we show how the art-nature commonplace was imitated from Latin poetics in eighteenth-century music manuals, especially in Der vollkommene Capellmeister (The Perfect Chapel Master, 1739) by Johann Mattheson. We treat the concepts of nature and art separately, so as to then elucidate the relationship between these concepts and Mattheson's use of the art-nature commonplace, whether from the perspective of the perfect orator or of taking nature as a model of art. We then discuss the expansion of the concept of nature so as to include the imitation of authors and works, and discuss the idea of naturality as the final purpose of art.

KEYWORDS:
Musica poetica; Johann Mattheson; Art; Nature; Musical rhetorics