The ethical power of music in the 'Ave Maria' motet by Claudio Monteverdi

Abstract

Since ancient times, the concept of ethos has been a distinguished part of cultural heritage, living in various spheres of social, cultural, intellectual and religious life. During the Renaissance, the encounter of rhetorical categories and Christian doctrine opened the space for the manifestation of ethos in sacred music. Ethos is important as a rhetorical category, therefore, as a way to achieve persuasiveness, in which the theory of ethos of the Greek rhetorician Hermogenes of Tarsus will be consulted. Following this theory, which was also known in the Renaissance, a series of counterpoint methods will take form, which may indicate the manifestation of certain subcategories of ethos in music. Having in mind Hermogenes' concept of ethos on the one hand, and the significance of ethos in the Christian figure of Mary on the other, this paper examines a chain of manifestations and, given Hermogenes' subcategories, offers an in-depth reading of the text and music in the motet from the end of the 16th century. It is an early work of Claudio Monteverdi on the words of the Ave Maria prayer, which, according to its religious function and meaning, represents not only a concise appeal to the ethos of believers, but also the ethical foundation of Marian devotions.