Rhetorical figures and Baroque instrumental pieces: the example of the Tombeau fait à Paris sur la mort de Monsieur Blancheroche by Froberger

Abstract

On the basis of a study of contemporary texts, the paper examines how musical rhetorical figures
were conceived, in order to understand in what a musical process can be considered rhetorical.
For the two authors considered, Maugars and Descartes, the figure appears as an irregularity with
respect to a norm, creating for the listener the surprise of a disappointed expectation. Musical
rhetorical figures can hence be identified, in an instrumental piece, on the basis of exclusively
musical criteria, without resorting to texts confirming their presence. Froberger’s Tombeau proves
rich in figures eluding compositional norms of the time: irregular treatment of dissonance,
deviation from expected cadential formulas, provoking tension and frustration in the listener. The
norm, however, projecting a horizon of expectation, can be created by the work itself. In the
Tombeau, larger passages oppose the general luthé style of the piece and, by the strangeness of
their writing, give hint of their representative intention. The insistent final pedal can therefore be
interpreted, together with the title “Tombeau” itself, as an imitation of the sounding of the funeral
knell, while the terminal descending scale delineates the fall in death.