THE AMERICAN RECORDER SOCIETY 114 East 85th Street, New York 28, N. Y. Founded in 1939 by Suzanne Bloch OFFICERS LaNOUE DAVENPORT, President I A.C. GLASSGOLO, Vice President I DONNA HILL, Secretary! YRSA DAMMANN GEIST, Asst. Secretary I MARVIN ROSENBERG, Treasurer I RALPH TAYLOR, Asst. Treasurer MARTHA BIXLER, Editor 359 East 68th Street No. 38 New York 21, N.Y. October 1959 Continuing the articles on Technique by A. Rowland Jones, the following is the tenth in +he series, reprinted with permission from The Recorder News of England. ORNAMENTATION It is not infrequent for the question ''how?" both the why and how of ornamentation, and to beg the question "why?". Ornamentation it is the purpose of this article to in- is a case. This series of articles on re- dicate those beginnings so that a player corder technique must therefore digress knows and can execute confidently a small into the more complex and fundamental and basically correct group of ornaments subject of musical interpretation. Much which he can (and should) modify as he of the best music written specifically for gains experience. The first essential in the recorder belongs to an age which orna- learning to ornament is to listen to as mentation was an integral and essential much sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth part of music and it was an accepted con- century music as time and opportunity al- vention that certain patterns of short lows--not just recorder music, but music notes should be written as one note, with for all instruments and voices. Even if or without an ornament sign above it, for it is impossible to undergo full-scale decoration was so stereotyped that the con- orientation by attending the Haslemere text of a note was sufficient to instruct Festival or other live concerts of old the player to execute a trill, shake, mor- music wireless programmes can always be dent, etc., or an extended improvisation listened to: performances by the London in the Carelli manner, as the occasion Harpsichord Ensemble, the Stuttgart Chamber might demand. A recorder player who wants Orchestra, the Deller Consort, the Schola to do justice to the music he plays must Polyphonica Basiliensis or the Italian '.eep himself in the tradition belonging players I Musici are object-lessons in the J its period, its style and its country style of old music. Knowledge of the social of origin. conditions of different periods and their attitudes to the arts generally leads to a The complexity of the subject should not, yet greater understanding of music. You however, terrify the player into disregard- will play a Handel sonata better if you ing it. There is a way to begin learning come to it after browsing in the "Spectator". -2- If you know what an ornament should sound close attention; the variety they lend to like you will be in a better position to a repeated section of music, played first accept the guidance provided by editors of only with cadential trills and such shakes music. Some editions (notably American and mordents as are essential to the phras- ones) follow the admirable practice of ing, is particularly delightful. Rapid writing out in ful.l on a small stave over trills and flourishes have the effect of an ornamented note the actual notes of the making music more exciting. This quality ornamentation (e.g. Peter's edition of Tele- is both an advantage and a danger. It is mann solo and trio sonatas), while others good to be able to compel the attention (e.g. Universal, and Boosey and Hawkes' of one's audience, but sheer pyrotechnics, recent Couperin arrangements by Stanley which often sound much harder to execute Taylor) put written-out ornamentations as tnan they are, can make nonsense of music. footnotes. One American edition (Music The criterion to adopt is, "can each orna- Press) prints a Couperin suite with written- ment be justified musically?" If there is out ornaments in the text but the result no good reason to ornament, don't. Another is rather black, and both obscures the general rule is "never let ornamentation melodic line of the music and makes it obscure the melodic line"; if the tune is hard for the player to adopt his own in- not hum-able immediately after it has been dividual interpretation (within the rules). played, it has been over-ornamented. Un- The same is true of the "grace-note" type less the style demands it, which is not of ornamentation guide used in many of Mr. often, ornaments should be played without Dolmetsch's editions. The most scholarly accent, for they are accents in themselves. approach is to quote when possible from It is painful to hear ornaments thrust at the composer's own writings on ornamenta- one in the manner of Jack Horner's plum, tions, as Mr. Lefkovitch does in Schott's or to have trills forced out up to the publication of Hotteterre's "llio and recorder's breaking point. In consort Rondeau". In the early stages of learning music in particular ornamentation should follow the editor's guidance: later on, be, above all things, discreet. when you have more experience let your own good taste be your guide. To turn to the ornaments themselves, the most common ones are the shake, the mor- It is not easy to lay down general rul.es dent, the appoggiatura, the trill, the as to when and when not to ornament, as so turn, the slide, the flourish and the much depends on the style of the piece. acciaccatura. Eighteenth-century French music, which is often not particularly melodious, depends The shake is a rapid movement from the for its effect on its being performed with note above the one that is written down to "taste and propriety", in other words, the written note, up again and then down with appropriate ornamentation, and there- again for the remainder of the length of fore demands more frequent and prominent the note. In words it goes "D=e-er-ee-er. ornamenting than a piece in the Italian . " : the ''dee" comes on the beat, never style in which ornaments are less frequent before it. There should be a slight ac- and more subservient to melody. The effect cent on the "dee" (a discord) but normal of ornamenting a note is to draw attention breath-pressure should be resumed immed- to it: it has the same result as a dynamic iately afterwards otherwise the shake will accent or as vibrato (which is a sort of sound forced. The sign for a shake is a ornament). It should therefore be related short squiggly horizontal line over the to phrasing, decoration being accorded only note. The sign for a mordent is the same to those notes in a phrase which need stres- with a vertical line drawn through it, and sing. A secondary effect of an ornament, the ornament simply consists of a rapid particularly one ending with a turn, is to drop to the note below and back again to give music a forward impetus; this is the written note. It is a more arresting partly because part of every ornament is a ornament than the shake and should not be discord and the ear anticipates its resolu- "pushed" in any way, although the effect tion. The leading note of a cadence is of bite can be emphasized by making a tiny generally improved by decoration, and ex- pause before playing the ornament. The cept in fast pieces its decoration at the "note above" and the "note below" refer final cadence of a whole section of music to those in the diatonic scale of the piece, is obligatory. Embellishments, to quote unless the composer has indicated other- C.P.E. Bach, make music pleasing and awaken wise by writing a small accidental above -3- the decoration sign, or unless the note :feel yourself beginning trills early, cure is governed by an accidental elsewhere in it by deliberately starting the trill after the bar. the beat. The trill should be thought o:f as an extended shake (Dee-er-ee-er-Ee-er The appoggiatura is a device :for writing ••• ),with a slight stress on the :first a discord in that musical shorthand known note, a slighter on the :fifth, even less as :figured bass . The accompanist in a on the ninth, and none thereafter, as the solo sonata is given only the treble note pattern is lost sight o:f in the gradual and the bass note with a :figure below in- acceleration o:f a long trill. In normal dicating the chord: to write the notes B, short trills the player should be aware o:f C over a C minor chord, the bass :funda- the number o:f notes he is playing, e.g., mental C and the treble melody note C 6, .8 or 10, and the trill should remain would have to appear to indicate the main even. It is important that the predomin- chord, and the discordant B has therefore ance o:f the upper auxiliary in the early to be shown in small print in :front o:f the part o:f a trill should not be lost by be- C. Whatever note is used in the small ginning the trill a demisemiquaver too soon print notation, an appoggiatura is gener- after its appoggiatura -- in other words ally equivalent in value to half the note when the appoggiatura is present (as it is that :follows in common or duple time, and generally) the trill itself begins just two-thirds in triple or dotted measures.