I’m going crazy trying to remember a term I have encountered mostly in writings about classical music. The word describes when a musical phrase represents an idea being expressed in the lyric. For instance, when decending notes coincide with a lyric about falling. It’s sort of like the musical equivalent of onomatopiea.
I can’t think of a specific word, but I’ve always seen that idea expressed simply as “word painting”
Yep, word-painting it is. Although ‘madrigalisms’ is a slightly cynical term about an emphasis on word-painting and the rhythms of the words.
That’s it. And I was giving myself a headache trying to remember a nonexistent foreign-language word. Thanks!