Omission of ornaments in Bach

[perprocrastinate]

Is this acceptable in the final, polished performance of a piece? Ornaments are sometimes indispensable embellishments to the flow of music, but on the contrary, often I find them impeding the flow of music because I struggle to play them in one way or the other (rhythm, timing, poor tone, etc).

[awesom_o]

It is absolutely acceptable to ornament Bach's music according to your own level of fluency!

It is much better to do it well without ornaments than to do it not-so-well with the ornaments 

[j_menz]

You can often simplify them as well.

Also, even if you are perfectly happy doing them as written, if you are playing repeats in a piece, or even recaps, the first time through should be ornamented rather more sparingly than the second (and subsequent) runs through, so practice in simplifying (and embellishing) ornaments is quite useful.

We often fall into the trap of assuming the ornaments written are a strict direction - they are actually more a serving suggestion, and Bach and his contemporaries would be horrified at the idea that a musician couldn't improvise ornamentation freely.

[awesom_o]

We often fall into the trap of assuming the ornaments written are a strict direction - they are actually more a serving suggestion, and Bach and his contemporaries would be horrified at the idea that a musician couldn't improvise ornamentation freely.

Well said!

[quantum]

It is completely acceptable to do so.

[mr1062]

You can often simplify them as well.

Also, even if you are perfectly happy doing them as written, if you are playing repeats in a piece, or even recaps, the first time through should be ornamented rather more sparingly than the second (and subsequent) runs through, so practice in simplifying (and embellishing) ornaments is quite useful.

We often fall into the trap of assuming the ornaments written are a strict direction - they are actually more a serving suggestion, and Bach and his contemporaries would be horrified at the idea that a musician couldn't improvise ornamentation freely.

Very helpful suggestion - thanks!