Samenvatting

The research has been planned to give support to the interpreter who desires to start a personal research about Sequenza XI, focusing on rhetorical features as means for its interpretation. The thesis is aimed to provide a method for both the performer who approaches the work and he who already knows it to connect music and language by rhetoric, focusing on XVI-century rhetoric. The main question In which way can the performer relate musical expression by rhetoric in specific areas of Sequenza XI ? has been answered by consulting books about rhetoric written by Italian scholars such as Ferruccio Civra and Silvano Perlini and the British Judy Tarling, who inspired the connection between rhetoric of Renaissance and Baroque with its potential use in XX-century music and specifically in Sequenza XI. Rhetoric will be connected with basic elements of interpretation such as rhythm, dynamics, gesture and phrasing as well as gestures such as tamboras, rasgueados or arpeggios. Focus on rhetoric has been personally chosen as guideline of interpretation of Sequenza XI to provide a more vital performance: that will be therefore the starting point of the performer for a balanced interpretation. A further contrastive analysis among Sequenza XI and other Sequenzas will be provided to answer the question How is Sequenza XI connected with others Sequenzas as regards rhetoric, gesture and tension?. The aim of the thesis is therefore to mark the difference between an interpretation which does not take into account rhetorical features and the one which does, showing that it is vital for the interpretation of Sequenza XI itself to bring out expressivity and virtuosism by using rhetoric and gesture.