In ancient times, language and music were already regarded as an inseparable unit. Homer’s epic poems, for example, were sung, and in the highly developed art of rhetoric, words were used to communicate reason, while music spoke to the soul. Since Monteverdi’s time, musical delineation of text has become even more important: rhetoric terms such as “exclamatio”, “saltus duriusculus”, and “climax” were applied to music in order to render the emotional content of the text in even more expressive ways.
Szathmàry used this compositional method as a model when he drafted his work for violin “Rhetorica”. He wrote about this work: “My aim was to instill a “speaking quality” into even the tiniest musical elements in order to allow for the music to become a powerful narration of the moments experienced in a human life with all its highs and lows – entirely without the use of words.”