What exactly is the doctrine of figures?
Is it just using and developing the same material - modulating etc? I just want to know if I'm on the right lines!

I hope someone can help!

Thanks in advance...

I don't know, I'm afraid I've never heard the term 'doctrine of figures'. To me figures in music theory apply to figured basses. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can help?

I vaguely recall coming across it in a Baroque music history class. I think it's something along the lines of there being musical figures equivalent to rhetorical figures of speech.
Sorry I can't remember anything more specific

that's interesting...

I found this - http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-12102...-Sebastian-Bach


"A repertoire of melody types existed, for example, that was generated by an explicit “doctrine of figures” that created musical equivalents for the figures of speech in the art of rhetoric"

That looks like it alright . I don't remember learning much about this in relation to Bach though, I think it was mainly earlier Baroque composers (Monteverdi, Gesualdo and a bit of Purcell too)

No actually, scratch that. Just thinking about it and I think the Gesualdo thing I was thinking of is something else altogether, not sure what it's called or even if it has a name.

I seem to remember a lot of this kind of thing (pictorial symbolism etc as mentioned in sneekymum's linked article) relating to Monteverdi's L'Orfeo. Also I think that chromatic descending bass in Dido's lament is supposed to represent her descent into the grave (I can't think of any other Purcell examples). I think the doctrine of figures is a much more specific type of pictorial symbolism though. Hope this helps a bit

Thanks, the article that sneekymum put a link for says rising pitch for when normal voices would go up or something to that effect. Isn;t this word painting?!

I think it is essentially word-painting, yes. They seem to have used the phrase "pictorial symbolism" in the article to mean just that.

But I would also say that the figures thing is a bit more specific - being related to particular parts of the text and rhetorical gestures and how they're represented musically. I don't know if that makes any sense or even how to explain it a bit better