The aim of this article is to identify rhetorical-musical figures in the first lesson of Orlando Di Lasso's Lamentationes Jeremiae Prophetae (Lamentatio Prima Primi Diei) with the terminology used at his period. Thus, the article is based on Joachim Burmeister's Musica Poetica (Rostock, 1606) with the translation into English by Benito V. Rivera (Musical Poetics, 1993).This article is part of a doctoral degree project whose object is the whole Lasso's Lamentationes Jeremiae Prophetae (for five voices) which is divided in three parts: Feria Quinta In Coena Domini, Feria Sexta In Parasceve and Sabbato Sancto. The analytical approach of the whole work must follow the methodology proposed by Burmeister in his fifth category of analysis (sectioning of the piece into affections or periods). The work also contains observations concerning the use of figures and other rhetorical-musical devices following suggestions which were proposed by authors from the same period of Lasso. These authors, in most cases, used Lasso's works to illustrate their statements. We hope the analytical data provided can help more reliable and historically based performances.
Lasso; Burmeister; rhetorical-musical figures; Lamentations; historical musicology
