Musical Rhetorical Figures in the German Penitential Cantata (1680-1740)

This thesis seeks to understand the applicability of music figures of rhetoric in sacred German-Baroque works dated around 1680. The study also endeavours to understand the compositional methods composers use in the company of sacred text. The first of its kind, this research looks at the role of musical-rhetorical figures in a single work called Gott, hilf mir, composed by Dieterich Buxtehude, Johann Valentin Meder and Johann Theile. The findings of this thesis demonstrate rather than figures of music rhetoric defined by theorists, composers used several established compositional techniques influenced by Italian music that were applied in the realisation of Luther’s musical mandate.