Metrical music and musical poetics: poetic influences in Portuguese music treatises in the XVI-XIX centuries

Abstract

From the Tractado de Cãto Llano [Plain‑chant treaty] from Mateus de Aranda in 1533 until the end of the 19th century, Portuguese musical writers sought to include aspects of poetry in their respective theoretical works. Among other aspects, they identified rhythmic sequences resulting from the use of the meter, a procedure that António Fernandes described in 1626 as “metrical music”. Several other musical writers showed a concern to adapt the music to the text, inciting the composers to a “musical poetics”, that is, to the knowledge of the poetic feet and the adaptation of the score to the respective meters. This is what Eugenio de Almeida advocates, for example, in his Tratado de melodia [Treatise on Melody] of 1868, with examples of poetic feet transcribed for agenda. Some writers also suggest very direct analogies between the poet and the musician, such as Jerónimo Cardoso who, in the Dictionarium Latino Lusitanicum of 1570, defines “Musicus, i” as follows: “The musician, or poet”. There will also be points of contact between poetry and music, through parallels, comparisons, references or appropriation, also addressing the concept of “poetic music”.