Ornamentation...

[ThePhoenixEffect]

Can someone explain the different kinds of ornamentation? Does ornamentation change with different styles/time periods?

[bernhard]

Very difficult (and time consuming) to explain it without a score so that you can see the realisations.

Keep in mind the following.

1.      Ornamentation changes with the period and with the geographical area. So in the Baroque, ornamentation conventions would be different in Italy, in Germany and in France, and sometimes different within different areas in these countries. So you cannot really give definite realisations that are generally applicable. You must know the composer, the piece, the historical period and the geographical area where the composer was working.

2.      Ornamentation up to the Classical period was improvised. So it is very rare that the composer will even indicate where you should place an ornament. Rameau, Couperin and C.P.E. Bach all wrote treatises for musicians learning their trade (not for composers, note) in which they give rules and examples of “tasteful” ornamentation. Unfortunately, we are very far in feeling and attitude to these past musicians to trust our intuitions in the matter, and in their writings they take for granted much that is now alien to us.

3.      Composers, when they indicate ornaments, very often do it in a very ambiguous manner. J. S. Bach took great pains to make sure people understood what he meant by each symbol he used. Even so there is still debates about which would be the best realisation. Scarlatti on the other hand was completely careless with the symbols he used with the consequence that we simply do not know at all what exactly he intended.

4.      Add to that the fact that most music up to the Classical period was copied by hand. Copyists were usually students of music (or in the case of Bach his wife and children) so that mistakes were constantly creeping on.

5.      Renaissance, Baroque and early Classic ornamentation were tied in with the theory of affects, so ornaments were usually used to set up dissonances to be resolved at the end of the ornament. This is the main reason why in these periods trills, appoggiaturas and so on always start on the upper note, so that when played with the bass note it must sound disagreeable. To our modern ears this is a bit of a shock, and we think it is wrong. Ornaments on the late classical and romantic period on the other hand are made to sound “nice”, not to create dissonances, so they usually start in the main note.

6.      So as you can see this is a minefield. The best introduction to all this I came across is:

Valery Lloyd Watts & Carole Bigler – Ornamentation: a Question and answer manual (Alfred)

The most complete reference is:

Fredrick Neumann – Ornamentation in Baroque and post-baroque music (Princeton)

For Renaissance an Baroque music, Robert Donnington has written several excellent books the most complete being "The interpretation of Early music" (Faber)

Other than that you really have to go after specific information on the piece you are working on. Usually ABRSM editions have authoritative realisations of ornaments, pretty up to date with the most recent research in musicology. Most Urtext editions however will not have the realisations, although they may indicate the ornaments if the composer indicated them in the first place.

Distrust ornament realisations in any edition that is over 50 years old. There was a revolution in our knowledge of early music interpretation in the past 50 years (it is still going on), so these older editions will not have benefited from this recent knowledge.

I hope this helps.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.