Introduction :: 
Arnold Dolmetsch, with his book Interpretation of Music of the Seventeenth and Eighteen Centuries published in 1915, was one of the first to understand how a performer was expected to add ornamentation to the performance of what today we call "early music". Ornamentation was integral to performance and to miss it out made as much sense as leaving out any of the written notes. Indeed, a study of original sources indicates to what degree performers were expected to 'expand upon' what was written, either through careful preparation or 'on the spur of the moment'.
In Musical Borrowings, we read that:
embellishment in 16th-century Italian intabulations ranged from the more sparing use of ornaments by mid-century lutenists to a much heavier and consistent use of ornamentation in the 1580s and 1590s. A comparison of several intabulations from the mid-century reveals a similar procedure of applying embellishments to obscure points of imitation and repeated sections of the vocal model. The lack of concern for bringing out the structure of the model and the freedom with which ornaments were applied shows how mid-century lutenists prized variety more than structural clarity. In the intabulations of Francesco da Milano and Francesco Spinacino, original vocal models are transformed into idiomatic pieces through a more motivic use of graces and through recomposition of certain passages. While the practice of free embellishment through idiomatic figuration continued throughout the 16th-century as a special technique of virtuoso soloists, the systematic exploitation of stereotyped graces led to diverse figuration patterns and a rich network of motives used in intabulations as well as variation sets in the second half of the century. |
Almost two hundred years later, in his "Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen" (Berlin, 1753), C.P.E. Bach writes:
It is not likely that anybody could question the necessity of ornaments. They are found everywhere in music, and are not only useful, but indispensable. They connect the notes; they give them life. They emphasise them, and besides giving accent and meaning they render them grateful; they illustrate the sentiments, be they sad or merry, and take an important part in the general effect. They give to the player an opportunity to show off his technical skill and powers of expression. A mediocre composition can be made attractive by their aid, and the best melody without them may seem obscure and meaningless. |
Starting with Chambonnières' print of 1670, almost all French composers included tables of ornaments in their printed editions, to illustrate 'the manner of playing.' D'Anglebert included a very thorough table of ornaments, perhaps the most complete of all. His symbols and types of ornaments provide both melodic embellishments and elaborate chordal figurations. D'Anglebert's system, like all French ornament systems, is combinatorial: a small number of simple gestures can be combined in a multitude of ways to produce a very rich set of ornamental figures. Since D'Anglebert uses exactly the same set of ornaments in one of his figured-bass examples, his entire oeuvre is a rich source of ideas for accompaniment in the French style. His table served as the basis for many such later tables. St-Lambert makes frequent reference to it in his influential Les principes du clavecin of 1702; and J.S. Bach, C.P.E.'s father, used it as the basis for the ornament table he provided for Wilhelm Friedemann's Clavier-Büchlein in 1720 and which is applicable to much of his own music.
Reference:
C. P. E. Bach wrote his father's obituary:
While a student in Lüneburg, my father had the opportunity to listen to a band kept by the Duke of Celle, consisting for the most part of Frenchmen; thus he acquired a thorough grounding in the French taste, which in those regions was something quite new... |
The infatuation in German courts with the French style provoked Christian Thomasius, in his Von Nachahmung der Französen (1687), to observe that:
French clothes, French food, French furniture, French customs, French sins, French illnesses are generally in vogue. |
So today, using an 'historically informed' approach, one's application of the correct style of ornamentation to a particular piece of music requires an appreciation of the subtleties involved when considering what was appropriate at the time the work was composed and performed including where a German composer might want to create something 'French', or a Frenchman something 'Italian'.
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It is a commonplace that no culture is self-contained. Contacts, exchanges and conflicts between elements and bearers of foreign interests, other forms of expression, and different customs are all essential to the development of cultural identity - to the formulation of the specific presence (style, as we would say today) that makes every achievement of a particular culture unique and immediately recognisable and identifiable as its own creation, as an expression of its own spirit. Let us recall that culture is a living intellectual and spiritual achievement. It is never static in time but dynamic, constantly enriched by the contribution of foreign factors capable of inspiring in it new orientations, though without altering its fundamental - one might even say unique - character. [Heroes of the frontiers in European Literature, History and Ethnography: The contribution of ACRINET, European Acritic Heritage Network by Hélène Ahrweiler, President of the University of Europe] |
The problem, for today's performer, is that ornamentation is one of those notational elements that varies from period to period and from country to country; indeed, it varied with the taste of the person writing about it.
Many writers emphasise the importance of 'good taste' but what did it mean to them. In his essay entitled Taste in the History of Aesthetics from the Renaissance to 1770, Giorgio Tonelli writes:
But who is endowed with 'good' taste? A minority of people, of course; for some authors, only a few connoisseurs living in nonbarbaric ages. The basic condition for belonging to this minority may be that of having a good education and polished manners; here it is assumed, as most authors do, that taste may be educated by exercise or by study |
So following our understanding of the rules of 'good taste' and having studied evidence from the period, we might attempt adding ornamentation to the musical line. Bur we soon discover that, while some composers would have expected this of the performer, others, and François Couperin must be counted among them, expected the performer to observe closely what had been written.
I am always astonished, after the pains I have taken to indicate the appropriate ornaments for my pieces, to hear people who have learnt them without heeding my instructions. Such negligence is unpardonable, the more so as it is no arbitrary matter to put in any ornament one wishes. I therefore declare that my pieces must be performed just as I have marked them, and that they will never make much of an impression on people of real discernment if all that I have indicated is not obeyed to the letter, without adding or taking way anything. François Couperin - preface to Book II of Pièces de Clavecin |
In 1813, Rossini was given the libretto of Aureliano in Palmira to set for La Scala, and he was required, against all the custom of the time, to set the role of Arsace for the castrato singer Velluti. It was an experience Rossini came to regret, since Velluti, exercising the traditional freedom of his predecessors, insisted on providing his own ornaments and embellishments to the composer's score. Rossini was furious, and he never again allowed a singer to improvise on his work: what ornamentation was needed he wrote into the score himself. It wasn't that he was against the use of ornamentation - he frequently devised them for his favorite singers, and not just for his own operas but quite often for those of other composers too! Where his own operas were concerned, though, he was determined to keep control.
Even in the twentieth century, when composers notate their intentions even more clearly and a Ravel can say: "I want no interpretation, it is enough to play what is written", composers may be present at the rehearsals and expect performers to have something of their own to say. Indeed as a member of an audience, do we not attend a concert as much to listen to the performer's interpretation as to hear the notes the composer wrote.
One of the world's master cellists, Brazilian-born Aldo Parisot, in an interview with Tim Janof, gives us an insight into the relationship between the composer and the performer.
When a composer creates a masterpiece, my job is not to recreate it; it's to try to create another masterpiece even greater than what the composer wrote. I experienced this many times when working with contemporary composers. For example, in 1959 I was asked to play the Hindemith Concerto in Carnegie Hall with Hindemith conducting the New York Philharmonic. I knew how dogmatic Hindemith could be so I made sure that I followed his score to the letter, including his metronome indications. When I was ready my manager told me that Hindemith wanted to hear me play his concerto well before the concert. So I went to Hindemith's hotel room in New York and knocked on the door. When he opened the door I could tell by his expression that he remembered our fight back at Yale. Then he invited me in and said, "Parisot, play my concerto." I then played the whole concerto, facing him while he conducted. When we finished, he kept his head down, still looking at the score. I waited a bit too long, and finally asked, "Mr. Hindemith, what did you think?" He said, "Parisot, you play my concerto very well. You even respect the fingerings and bowings of my brother, who was a cellist. But I'd like to ask you one question. Is that the way you feel my music?" I replied, "Not at all! I was just trying to obey what you wrote." He said, "Okay, we still have ten days. Why don't you come back in a few days and play it the way you really want to?" I couldn't believe my ears! Fortunately, I had the habit of learning a piece in three or four different ways, so I didn't panic. A few days later I returned and this time I turned away from him, letting him follow me this time, and I played the concerto how I really wanted to. I put in a rubato here and there, took a little more time in other places, and when I finished, he said, "Bravo, Parisot!" So what I'm saying is that the written notes are just the beginning, because it's impossible to transmit one's artistic vision and feelings to another human being through notes on a page, or even person-to-person. |
Ornamentation, then, has to be treated as part of a wider field called interpretation which will include matters such as tempo, rhythm, instrumentation and, of course, style. It might involve some understanding of the role of music and musicians in society when the music was originally written, as well as considering evidence that may have survived about original performances, including the expectations of the composer, performer and audience at that particular period and in that place, as far as we can understand them.
Zygmunt Stojowski, in his article The Evolution of Style and Interpretation In Piano Literature, writes:
Each composer is born into a given time and place, into a period of history with its social, economic and political conditions that affect him and his output; with a set of tools evolved and sanctioned by tradition to which his own needs may add new ones. Human personality is bound to reflect the "genius loci," a native soil and given environment. There is, accordingly, a particular mental attitude to grasp, a milieu to know, a technique to master. The historical sense steps in, and the presence of a fourth element in the cooperative effort of our three parties, make itself felt: our instrument viewed in evolutionary perspective. |
In the matters immediately relevant to this lesson, one must understand what part ornamentation plays in enhancing rhythm, harmony and melody. Ornamentation is more like the fruit in a fruit cake than the icing on top of it. Take off the icing and you still have a fruit cake - remove the fruit, and you have not.
Thanks to books by Dolmetsch, Donington (The Interpretation of Early Music; pub. Faber - rev. version 1974) and others, as well as the labours of good editors, we have modern editions in which the original ornamentation is clearly marked and fully explained and additions are indicated as suggestions. Our problem can often be reduced to reading the symbols on the score and applying them correctly during the performance.
For this reason, we try to keep this discussion of ornamentation at a basic level. For those interested in a deeper understanding we recommend the reader turns to the fascinating books by Arnold Dolmetsch and by Dolmetsch's student, Robert Donington, or to the many other excellent surveys of this field.
References:
Grace Notes ::
 | In the seventeenth century the word 'grace' was applied to a number of 'ornaments' including the appoggiatura (from an Italian word meaning 'to lean') and the acciaccatura (from an Italian verb acciaccare meaning 'to crush'). The acciaccatura is very short (literally 'crushed'), is played on the beat together with, or imperceptably before, the principal note before being released. It is generally written as a small quaver (eighth note) with a stroke through its flag and lies in front of the principal note. This notation is symbolic - the grace note is not counted in the time value count for the bar. |
As a form of appoggiatura, the 'grace note' is played either just before the beat resolving speedily to the principal note which is itself on the beat, or is played on the beat but resolves speedily to the principal note which is accented. This is an example of a very short appoggiatura. In all three cases the 'grace note' is short.
We give the three examples below.
Some authors include a number of other note patterns under the heading of grace notes; for instance, a sequence of two or more notes played very quickly as a link from one principal note to the next. Apart from the requirement to play them as quickly as possible, there was no 'hard and fast' rule as to whether these 'passing' grace note sequences were to be played on or before the beat. Sometimes composers make their intentions clear with written instructions or supplementary marks (this is particularly true once we start looking at music of the twentieth century) but the performer should be aware that in any area 'taste' is as good a guide as 'evidence'.
Georg Muffat, a German who had been one of Lully's musicians, insisted on the "importance of using with good judgment of the nice manners and proper grace notes which make the harmony brilliant as so many precious stones ... (and) that from them depends a peculiar sweetness, vigour and beauty." After which he tells about the current mistakes, which are the omission, the impropriety, the excess and the unskillfulness, adding, "for which one ought to be so assiduous in the making of these precious ornaments of music."
Mozart would often write an acciaccatura when he wanted a normal, as opposed to, a very short appoggiatura.
Before the nineteenth century, there was tremendous freedom in how these matters could be notated or, in practice, how the performer might realise them. Many composers supplemented editions of their music with a 'table of ornaments' but this might only be applicable to that particular edition. In eighteenth century France, the composers were invariably brilliant performers and the pieces were expected to display this. The decoration that a performer applied freely in performance could be very difficult to notate accurately on the page.
A note about notating ornaments: if the auxiliary notes in an ornament include accidentals, for instance a C sharp in the key of G major, this is shown by writing an accidental, in this case a sharp sign, above or below the ornament sign. In the case of an F natural in the key of G major, the sign would be a natural.
Appoggiaturas ::
 | The appoggiatura was widely used in 'early music'. We have met the very short form when discussing grace notes above and in this section we want to concentrate on the rule, set out by C.P.E. Bach, which covers the majority of occasions when it is required |
| the appoggiatura is written symbolically as a small note (see above); | |
| that appoggiatura is ignored when summing the time values in the bar; | |
| the appoggiatura lies to the left of, and is shown slurred to the principal note; | |
| the appoggiatura is always played on the beat - the principal note follows; | |
| the duration of the appoggiatura is determined by the note value of the principal note; | |
| for an undotted principal note, the appoggiatura takes half its value - the principal takes the remainder; | |
| for a dotted principal note, the appoggiatura takes two thirds its value - the principal takes the remainder; | |
| the appoggiatura often formalises the practice of 'freely filling-in thirds' in melodic lines; | |
| the partition rule for appoggiaturas may occasionally change as rhythmic or harmonic considerations indicate; | |
| the appoggiatura may ascend (move from the note below the principal note) or descend (move from the note above the principal note) depending on the ornamental sign. |
We give below two examples of the standard appoggiatura.
It is common to see a small slur linking the appoggiatura symbol to the principal note that follows it. Whether or not one actually slurs the two notes in performance is determined by the style you want. In other words, the slur is symbolic and not mandatory.
In his treatise Versuch einer Anweisung, die Flöte traversière zu spielen (1751), Quantz wrote:
Short appoggiaturas .. must be touched very briefly and softly, as though, so to speak, only in passing .. those must not be held, especially in a slow tempo; otherwise they will sound as if they are expressed with regular notes .. This, however, would be contrary not only to the intention of the composer, but to the French style of playing, to which these appoggiaturas owe their origin. The little notes belong in the time of the notes preceding them, and hence must not, as in the second example, fall in the time of those that follow them. |
Edward Randolph Reilly (10 Sep. 1929 - 28 Feb. 2004), the American translator of the English version of Quantz's treatise, concludes that Quantz's statement regarding the French style of playing to which these appoggiaturas owe their origin:
... strongly suggests that pre-beat placement in this rhythmic figure was not uncommon, at least in the school of eighteenth-century flute performance: Judging from Quantz's insistence that the performance of passing appoggiaturas in the time of the preceding note is part of the French style of playing, he probably heard them performed in that manner, at least by flute players, during his visits to Paris in 1726 and 1727. Furthermore, recall Bach's own admission that his on-beat rule was frequently ignored by performers of his day when he declares, "This observation (i.e., on-beat placement) grows in importance the more it is neglected". |
The appoggiatura takes on the role of a musical 'sigh' when we come to the music of Mozart. This is examined further in Mozart's musical language in The Marriage of Figaro.
In some nineteenth century music, the appoggiatura symbol is used when an acciaccatura is what is meant.
Nachslag ::
 | There is one exception to the rule that the appoggiatura is always placed on the beat, and that is the passing appoggiatura or Nachslag. When a passage descending by thirds contains appoggiatura signs (hooks or small notes), the appoggiaturas may be used to fill in the interval of the third. According to the context, the appoggiatura may be placed to produce a run of notes of equal time value, see example (1) below, or kept close to the principal note (that is played quickly), see example (2) below. |
Although C.P.E. Bach did not favour the Nachslag, other writers, including Quantz, disagreed with him and explained them to their readers in some detail.
Turns ::
 | The general shape of the turn is a sequence of four notes, the note above, the note itself, the note below, then the note itself again |
The two examples below are a good guide to how the turn is normally played. The rhythmic shape of the sequence, whether all the notes have the same time value or some are extended or shortened, and its overall duration depends on the context in which ornament is being used.
In his 'Versuch', C.P.E. Bach spends twelve pages and gives seventy examples not included in those twelve pages, discussing the the turn. Suffice it to say, this is a 'free' ornament; the shape of the note sequence is followed, but all else is up to the performer and the occasion.
The turn may be inverted as in the preparation of an ascending trill when the note sequence becomes the note below, the note itself, the note above, then the note itself again.
| Bach sometimes wrote his turn signs vertically |  | and this symbol is found in some editions of his work. |
Trills ::
 | Fewer ornaments give performers more problems than trills. Maybe this is because there are many different kinds of trill, each right for a particular situation |
A trill may have anything up to three parts: a preparation (sometime called a prefix), a shake and a termination.
| the preparation may be a long or short appoggiatura which is always played on the beat; | ||||
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| in early music, the appoggiatura is always the note above the written note (in which case it as called the auxiliary note); | ||||
| in modern music, the appoggiatura is generally the written note (called the principal note); | ||||
| a short appoggiatura is as long as the individual notes in the shake; | ||||
| a long appoggiatura is one half of an undotted principal, two thirds of a dotted principal; | ||||
| the appoggiatura is slurred to the shake which follows; | ||||
| the preparation may be a normal or inverted turn played at the same note speed as those of the shake, for example, in a descending or ascending trill; | ||||
| the shake begins on the note above the written note and finishes on the written note; | ||||
| the notes of a shake should be as short as is comfortable for the player; | ||||
| if the termination is a turn, it is slurred to the shake; | ||||
| if the termination is a single note, it is separated from the shake; | ||||
| cadential trills, those at the end of sections, normally have long appoggiaturas. |
The trill may be reduced to a shake alone or it may have no termination. We give some examples below.
Very rarely, the appoggiatura of a trill is actually written into the melodic line as a separate note (as, for example, in the Pralltriller - see section below). This becomes clear when one examines the harmonic progression in the accompanying parts. If the harmony indicates that the previous note, although the same pitch as the appoggiatura, is not the appoggiatura of the trill following, then the player has to repeat the note when playing the appoggiatura to avoid starting the trill on the wrong note. We give such an example below in which the second line is what is written, the top line is what is understood by what is written and the third line is what is actually played
The instrumental trill, which is what we have discussed above, should not be confused with the vocal trill which, even during the period we are considering here, was an altogether more ornate 'creature'. Neil Howlett is his excellent article The Trill (from which we have quoted) tells us that:
"within thirty years of the first opera in 1600, the study and practice of the trill, both as a vocal ornament and a measure of expertise, had reached its apogee in the achievement of Baldassare Ferri (1610-1680). He would have completed his studies as a castrato singer by 1630, and his legacy to us is the performance of a two octave chromatic scale in trills both up and down and in one breath: a technical tour de force which has undoubtedly neither been surpassed nor equalled since. Regular study of the trill renders the voice supple and the throat strong; it makes possible many different vocal ornaments; evens the voice from top to bottom and by so doing facilitates all other agility; it enables the singer to encompass repertoire from 1650–1900, for which the trill is an essential requirement." |
The vocal trill is derived from the trillo which before about 1680 indicated another vocal ornament: accelerating pulsations of breath on a single note. When this decoration became old fashioned and fell into disuse, it seems that the term was reapplied to increasing reverberations of two adjacent notes instead. The English word for the trill in the 17th and 18th century was the very descriptive ‘shake’. For the singer, his or her crowning glory was the ribattuta, a steadily accelerating shake between two notes either a semitone or a tone apart performed using the method called a laryngeal shake.
When did the convention change to starting the trill on the lower note? Here is a recent summary about this written by Clive Brown: [Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press, 2004, acc. 11/29/04]
The elaborate systems of ornament signs developed by 18th-century keyboard players was not widely adopted, even in keyboard music, during the Classical period. For other instruments composers rarely employed anything but tr, the mordent sign and various forms of turn sign....The sign tr usually indicated a trill with a number of repetitions of the upper auxiliary, while the mordent sign indicated only one or two repetitions (depending whether it began with the auxiliary); however, each of these signs was sometimes used with the meaning usually applicable to the other. The various forms of turn sign cannot reliably be related to particular melodic and rhythmic patterns; sometimes they too could be synonymous with tr, and in manuscript sources the distinction between [various examples given] is often unclear. During the 19th century, as composers became concerned to take greater control of their music, they increasingly wrote out ornaments in full. The progression is neatly illustrated by Wagner's turns: up until Lohengrin he used signs, but in Tristan and his later operas he always incorporated the turns into the notation. Inverted mordents were often indicated either by small notes or in normal notation, and even trills were sometimes fully notated, for instance by Dvorak (op. 106) and Tchaikovsky (opp. 64 and 74). Considerable controversy has been generated by the question of how trills in music from the period 1750 to 1900 should begin. Scholarship has clearly shown that, although the upper-note start was never quite as self-evident as advocates such as C.P.E. Bach implied, it was undoubtedly the dominant practice in the mid-18th century. When and where a general preference for a main-note start began to emerge remains uncertain. Moser identified the strongest support for the upper-note start as being in north Germany; he asserted, however, that in Mannheim, the trill was to begin from above only if specifically notated, and that C.P.E. Bach's authority was countered by 'the powerful influences which stemmed from the Viennese masters of instrumental music' (Violinschule, iii, 19-20). What evidence Moser may have possessed for this statement, other than received tradition by way of Joachim, remains unclear. Certainly, a considerable number of the trills on the musical clocks from the 1790s containing Haydn's Flötenuhrstücke begin on the main note, but there is no consistency and no connection with Haydn's notation. Arguments for and against Mozart's preference have been advanced, and the matter has been exhaustively examined by Neumann. For Beethoven, too, the evidence is largely circumstantial. In 1828, however, Hummel published his unambiguous opinion that a main-note start should be the norm, and Spohr followed suit a few years later. Baillot offered four different beginnings without recommending the primacy of any. Some 19th-century composers took trouble to indicate the beginnings of trills, particularly to show a start from below, and their manner of doing this was used by Franklin Taylor in 1879 as evidence for their normal practice. It seems probable that among major 19th-century composers Weber, Chopin and Mendelssohn generally favoured an upper-note start. In this as in other aspects of performance, however, dogmatism and rigidity are undoubtedly out of place. |
Note
The term 'trill' is also applied in phonetics. It is a consonant produced with one articulator held close to another so that a flow of air sets up a regular vibration. E.g. the 'rr' of Spanish burro, meaning 'donkey', is a lingual trill, with vibration of the tip of the tongue, or specifically a dental trill, articulated in the dental position of articulation. Uvular trills, with vibration of the uvula against the back of the tongue, are possible, though not usual, for example the 'r' in French. In such cases the pitch of the sound is constant, unlike the trill in music.
References:
Pralltriller ::
 | Also called the 'half trill', the Pralltriller is discussed by C.P.E. Bach, by J.F. Agricola (one of J.S. Bach's students), and by F.W. Marpurg, in his book on clavier playing. It may occur only after a descending second. The note that is ornamented with the trill must be preceded by the note one diatonic step higher. The pralltriller is played like an extremely rapid trill. It contains only four notes, the first of which is tied to the preceding note. C.P.E. Bach says that it "joins the preceding note to the decorated one, and therefore never appears over detached notes." From the mid 18th-century, the Schneller, the inverted mordent, gradually replaced the Pralltriller |
Mordents ::
 | The name mordent is derived from the Latin verb mordere meaning 'to bite'. |
The symbol for the shake is sometimes confused with the symbol for the mordent, the latter first appearing in Chambonnières' "1st Book of Pieces" (1670). It should be pointed out that although some commentators suggest the ornament is basically a French invention, ornamentation identical to the mordent is referred to earlier by Playford, Thomas Mace and Christopher Simpson in England and by Nicolaus Ammerbach, in his "Orgel - oder Instrument - Tablatur" (1571).
In music written before the nineteenth century the mordent (written as a shake sign crossed by a vertical line) is a sequence of three notes (the written note, the note below and returning to the written note). This is sometimes called a 'lower' mordent to distinguish it from the nineteenth century ornament (written as a shake sign) called the 'upper' mordent or Schneller, also a sequence of three notes (the written note, the note above and back to the written note). These are both illustrated below.
The term 'inverted mordent' is one that causes much confusion. Depending on the period when the term is being used it can mean either of the two mordent forms we have illustrated above. The 'lower' mordent is the original mordent form and so the term 'inverted' should really be used to describe the 'upper mordent'. Unfortunately, from the nineteenth century, when the 'upper mordent' had become the more common form, the term 'inverted mordent' was more commonly used to describe the older, original form.
 | The long or double mordent was an extended mordent, a sequence of five notes, the written note, the note below, the written note, the note below and returning to the written note. |
Vibrato ::
We have chosen to include vibrato in this section because, in modern day performances of 'early music', vibrato seems to cause performers so many problems. It is clear from instruction books from the period that there were mechanical 'vibrato-like' ornaments such as flattement, battement and bebung. Stops on some early organs included a 'vibrato effect' indicating that the 'effect' could be extended, maybe even lasting throughout a whole movement. 'Vibrato' is the slight and quick wavering of pitch about a mean, which we use almost without thinking, whether playing or singing, to add lustre to our tone. If the pitch change is small and its frequency great enough, the ear no longer perceives a series of different notes, but only a change in timbre or tone-colour. There are, according to Robert Donington, good acoustic as well as historical reasons for including vibrato in proper moderation.
Recent researches put the time-span after which it is possible for our own faculties to perceive a new aural event as such, and not merely as an undifferentiated continuation, at about one-twentieth to one-eighteenth of a second. Any absolutely unvarying persistence of the same aural signal beyond this time-span rapidly fatigues that band of fibres in the basilar membrane of the ear which is involved in detecting it: there is then a subjective decline both in the volume and in the colorfulness of the sound perceived. It seems to go a little dead on us; and this is the acoustic consideration which makes vibrato a natural rather than an artificial recourse on melodic instruments. The vibrato just mitigates that deadening persistence. |
Dr. Valerie Flook writing in The Recorder Magazine (Winter 2002) comments:
Production of a constant air flow at the mouth is probably an impossibility. In my experience (a physicist teaching physiology) subjects attempting to breathe out at a constant rate (usually by following a trace defining the flow as a visible signal) even after training, produce something which oscillates slightly. I am sure expert wind players can do better than the average respiratory physiologist but in fact the respiratory system is almost designed to oscillate. Controlled expiration is achieved by controlling the activity of antagonistic respiratory muscles and these are continuously "hunting". The relative roles of the antagonistic muscles change as lung volume changes. In addition, a muscle mass contracts not by all the motor units being active at once but by a number of units contracting. A muscle fibre is either contracted or it is not; graduated muscle activity is by contraction of appropriate numbers of fibres. Contracted fibres "tire", use up metabolic substrates and other fibres take over; so even within a small part of a muscle there is continuously changing activity. Given this complexity it would be surprising if a constant flow, to within the equivalent of 1 cent (1% of a semitone) could be achieved. |
We use vibrato almost without thought and it is taught as an important aspect of modern instrumental and vocal technique. The principal reason that vibrato is perceptible as a constant in the vocal tone of modern singing is because of the greater air pressure used. When there is a change in air pressure or in the size of the air stream, the larynx will automatically respond differently. Using a lower pressure (compared to modern operatic singing) avoids the need to control vibrato through mechanical suppression in the vocal tract. Seventeenth-century singing -- whether French or Italian -- is not achieved by taking a modern production and "straightening" the sound. If you try to suppress vibrato without changing the air pressure, you will have to use some kind of constriction in the vocal tract. Such constriction can lead to unnecessary tension and fatigue. This can understandably alarm voice teachers when their students start "straightening" their sounds for singing early music. Using a laryngeal set-up that is unconstricted, with a breath pressure that will allow for vibrato to be used at the singer's discretion, is a common denominator between Italian and French singing in the seventeenth century; what differs is the variable versus steady state air stream. Vibrato would have been consciously added by the singer when desired and was not a natural by-product of the voice production.
There are two different ways of producing vibrato, one produced with breath pressure and the other produced in the throat. Both types of vibrato mechanism were used during the seventeenth century. The different mechanisms produce a difference in sound for these two types of vibrato but the difference is somewhat subtle. The French would most likely have used a throat-produced vibrato, a mechanism very similar to their trill technique, in order not to disturb their steady air stream. The Italians most likely used a breath-produced vibrato as their norm, since they were using a variable air stream already, with throat vibrato reserved perhaps for more special effects. No seventeenth-century source addresses this issue, although Johann Adam Hiller in the late 18th century regarded throat vibrato as the more difficult of the two types of vibrato. This suggests that the 18th-century Italo-Germanic School used throat vibrato less often than breath vibrato.
In the 1960s, and despite a lot of contrary evidence, many influential early music specialists believed that vibrato was never used except as an occasional ornament. The period when this approach might be adopted has been extended, over the last decade or so, to include what we call the 'mid-romantic', the music of Brahms and early Mahler, for instance. Some have pointed to Fritz Kreizler as the populariser of a wider more continuous string vibrato in part because of his association with Viennese 'cafe-music' but Roger Norrington suggests that German orchestras eschewed the use of vibrato until the early 1930s, although admitting that soloists, whether instrumentalist or singer, used vibrato in the 18th and 19th century.
This rejection of the use of vibrato in modern performances of 'early music' has led to a lot of dry, rather dull performances that find an audience that 'feels' it is 'early' because it is not what they believe to be 'modern', that is, to include the use of 'vibrato'. The fatal circularity in this argument should be obvious. In the minds of some, 'early music' is an 'antidote' to the more poisonous aspects of modern performance which include the early music performing tradition established by Dolmetsch, Donington and their pupils in and after the late 1800s but 'en passant' a performing tradition stretching back to when this music was still wet on the page.
Several modern commentators have questioned the basis of what we call 'early musical performance' and you are recommended to read the work of those who have carefully re-examined the premise that underpins the modern practices in 'early music'. In addition, we have provided a number of interesting links to web site where vibrato is discussed and which show that even today there is no unanimity.
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Arpeggiation ::
In a previous lesson we discussed broken and spread chords. Accompanists, whether performing on keyboard, plucked stringed or certain bowed stringed instruments, would take the formal chord structure and extemporise series of arpeggios - played in a 'harp-like manner'. This technique later became common in music written for the piano for which a special symbol was introduced. The chord to be arpeggiated might lie on one stave or across both staves and occasionally the arpeggiation should be played from the top of the chord to the bass, in which case a downward pointing arrow would be placed beside the special symbol, a vertical wavy line.
Divisions ::
The musical form, Theme and Variations, has its origins in a musical form known as 'Divisions' or in Spanish Diferencias, which can be translated as "differences". Some of earliest examples come from the 16th century, e.g. by Luis de Narváez. A simple theme would be extended through formal ornamentation and free extemporisation becoming melodically more convoluted and extended. In earlier times, these variations would be written down only in teaching methods. Divisioning was in music of the fifteenth and sixteenth century what we hear in modern jazz - variation for the purpose of developing or displaying technical or musical prowess.
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