ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of analytical approach to north German free keyboard works of the late seventeenth century based on one or more concepts of the stylus phantasticus need not omit a consideration of the structural sophistication and eloquent rhetoric that such works exhibit. In rhetorical terms, both musicians emphasize the importance of pronunciation or the art of performing a musical 'oration. Gorman examines rhetoric and affect in Buxtehude's praeludia, using the template of a traditional dispositio to analyse each of the composer's twenty-two works in the genre. Except for a brief footnote reference, however, Gorman gives no attention to Athanasius Kircher's understanding of the stylus phantasticus, which, with its focus on order and compositional craftsmanship, could be said to relate more to the 'objective portions' of a dispositio than to 'the affective Exordium and Peroratio' that readily parallel Johann Mattheson's concept of the fantastic style.
