Thoughts · 16 February 2026
What is Music? — The Art of Imitation
For the composers of the Baroque there was a clear answer: music is the art of imitating human emotion. A look at the doctrine of affects and what it still tells us.
What is music? The question has occupied humanity for millennia. For the composers of the Baroque and Classical periods there was a clear answer: music is the art of imitating human emotions. This principle of imitation — known in music theory as the Affektenlehre, the doctrine of affects — was the foundation of musical thought in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The idea that music should simply sound beautiful would have seemed foreign to contemporaries.
The composer’s task was to depict the full range of human feeling. The performer in turn had to decipher these emotions, feel them, and convey them to the audience in a way faithful to the composer’s intentions. The theorist Johann Mattheson put it unequivocally in 1739 in Der Vollkommene Capellmeister:
“Everything that happens without commendable affections is worth nothing, does nothing, counts for nothing.”
This radical statement makes clear how central emotional effect was. The goal of every performance was to move the listener. If that goal was not reached, the performance was considered a failure. Johann Joachim Quantz wrote in his flute method of 1752 that a performance was poor if the player acted contrary to the passions or played without feeling.
Language played a central role. It was considered the primary medium of human emotion and itself contains musical elements: melody, rhythm, tempo, dynamics, articulation. Mattheson therefore called music a “sounding speech”. From this connection musical rhetoric developed. As ancient oratory used rhetorical figures, music employed its own: the step (gradus) for gentle motion, the leap (saltus) for dramatic effect, the passus duriusculus for deep sorrow, the tirata for rapid successions of seconds, the circulatio for circling motion.
The choice of key was not arbitrary either. Major keys were associated with joy, victory or battle, minor keys with sorrow, pain or humility. C major was held to have a broad expressive range, suitable for joy as much as for boldness, while E major stood for death and extreme sadness. These associations may seem arbitrary today, but for the musicians of the time they were self-evident.
When we make music today, we still experience this principle even if we are unaware of it. We instinctively connect an ascending melody with a crescendo to hope or joy, a descending line with a decrescendo to sorrow or humility. The great composers knew this effect and used it deliberately. Perhaps that is the timeless answer to the question: music is the art of moving hearts.
Music as sounding speech
The close connection between music and language is one of the most fascinating phenomena in music history. In the Baroque it was the foundation of all musical thought. Music was understood as a “sounding speech” — a form of communication following rules similar to spoken language.
Language was considered the primary medium of human emotion. It itself contains musical elements: melody, rhythm, tempo, dynamics, articulation. When we speak, we unconsciously vary pitch, tempo and volume to express feeling. Precisely these principles were transferred to music. Music was to imitate language — not in its concrete words, but in its emotional expressiveness.
From this musical rhetoric developed. The step (gradus) symbolised gentle, connecting motion; the leap (saltus) dramatic effect. The passus duriusculus, the chromatic descent, expressed deep sorrow and pain. The tirata, a rapid succession of seconds, represented hurried action. The circulatio, a circling motion, symbolised perfection or eternity.
What does this mean for interpretation? When we play a Baroque piece we should recognise these figures and give them expression. The passus duriusculus, frequent in Bach’s works, demands particular emphasis — a slight slowing, a more intense vibrato, careful dynamic shaping. The step, by contrast, is played fluently and connecting, the leap with a small articulation pause. These distinctions may seem minor, yet they make the difference between a merely correct and a genuinely expressive interpretation.
Rhythmic patterns also carried symbolic meaning. The dactyl (long-short-short) was associated with haste and movement, the trochee (long-short) with seriousness and dignity. The anapaest (short-short-long) expressed impatience, the pyrrhic (short-short) lightness and speed. These figures are found in countless works of the period and shape their character decisively.
Engaging with musical rhetoric is more than an academic exercise. It is the key to a deeper understanding of the music of the Baroque and Classical periods. And it teaches us that music is more than a succession of notes — it is a language that speaks directly to the heart.
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