Neumann - New Look Bach Ornamentation 2

8/13/2019 Neumann - New Look Bach Ornamentation 2

1/9

A New Look at Bach's Ornamentation, IIAuthor(s): Frederick NeumannSource: Music & Letters, Vol. 46, No. 2 (Apr., 1965), pp. 126-133Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/732623 .Accessed: 31/05/2011 13:35

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at .http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=oup . .

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Music & Letters.

http://www.jstor.org
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ouphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/732623?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ouphttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ouphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/732623?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=oup


2/9

A NEW LOOK AT BACH'SORNAMENTATION

BY FREDERICK NEUMANN

II

IN contrast to the unobtrusive grace note, the appoggiatura is very

conspicuous indeed and makes its presence far more strongly feltthan the former. Placed in the rhythmical spotlight of the measure itdisplaces a melody note for a varying length of time and therebyactually changes the contour of the melody itself; it implies aharmonic accent, stressing the dissonance, and carries strongexpressive emphasis, and when too short to do so, carries a strongrhythmical stress. In other words, it is a powerful ingredient.Because of this it stands to reason that its use requires far greatercircumspection than that of the grace note, which can hardly do any

damage even if improperly applied. On the other hand, the strongflavour of the appoggiatura can, in a favourite simile of the period,easily spoil the broth by too much seasoning. The over-use of its longvariety will first saturate, then irritate: the over-use of the shortvariety will make for ruggedness where smoothness would have beenthe wiser and more artistic choice. In other words, the appoggiaturamust never be used as a matter of routine, but only in those instanceswhere the very kind of emphasis it imparts is called for by the con-text. They are the places where a sensitive performer of the period

would have added one of his own, had it not been indicated.Once we realize that Bach's little notes did not invariably stand

for appoggiaturas, we shall find many places where their interpre-tation as appoggiaturas simply does not fit. Apart from the forbiddenparallels already mentioned, the most obvious case is one where theVorschlag precedes a long appoggiatura that, as usual, is written outby Bach. Nothing could be more incongruous than to top one

appoggiatura with another one, since the second would, like a parasite,drain from the first the very essence of the melodic, rhythmic and

harmonic emphasis which it was meant to convey. Quantz points tothis instance and tells us that a Vorschlag written before another onethat is spelled out has to be played before the beat-in other words,as a grace note.1 His example:

X I r - J - XffrL1 'Versuch einer Anweisung die Flote Traversiere zu spielen', Chap. 8, para. 6.

I26


3/9

Agricola makes a similar statement vetoing the cumulation of twoappoggiaturas and admits only rare exceptions, such as a 6 chordwhich may on occasion be preceded by a descending appoggiatura.For an ascending appoggiatura he admits no exceptions. Moreover,he makes the significant statement that an appoggiatura makes nomusical sense on top of a melodic dissonance that occurs on thebeat.2 Nothing could be more logical. Yet we find the compoundappoggiatura interpretation over and over again in books and inperformance. Kirkpatrick, for instance, a consistent advocate of thedownbeat ornamentation, repeats this pattern of a doubled appog-giatura in many cases in his edition of the Goldberg variations.3A good example is the thirteenth variation. It so happens, as waspointed out before, that this interpretation leads in no fewer thanthree cases to forbidden parallels. One is shown here:

t i e fo ,d

Grace-note treatment is therefore unavoidable in some, and is

indicated in a great many other, cases. How should the choice bemade ? If any directive can be given it is this, that the decision bebased on musical and not dogmatic grounds; that the emphasizeddownbeat start can be applied only when an appoggiatura is sugges-ted on harmonic, expressive and melodic grounds; that a grace noteshould be used, not just by default, to avoid forbidden parallels, notas an embarrassed second choice when an appoggiatura obviouslymakes little sense, but as the first choice whenever melodic smooth-ness seems the point at issue. To put it simply, it can and should be

used whenever it sounds better to a discriminating ear. And thisdecision can be made without selfconsciousness, since authority forit is plentiful.

Moreover, a performer is not forced to choose squarely betweenone or the other. Grace notes and appoggiaturas are only opposingprototypes and their characteristics can be mixed in an infinitevariety of ratios. A Vorschlag an be played on the beat yet be unac-cented and thus give the effect of a grace note with a delayedentrance-the kind of delay that Couperin calls suspension. A

Vorschlag can also straddle the beat in many different rhythmicalshapes which in turn can be treated to an imaginative variety ofdynamics. The combination of all these possibilities will then providethe very diversity that is the essence of ornamentation.

The trill. It is commonly assumed that the trill in Bach shouldalways start with the upper auxiliary and that the latter should enter

2 Tosi, 'Anleitung zur Singkunst', pp. 75, 78.a Schirmer (1938).

127


4/9

precisely on the beat with an appoggiatura-like emphasis which itretains throughout the repercussions. This rule was derived mainlyfrom Philipp Emanuel Bach and from Marpurg and is generallybelieved to accord with French practice. The latter is assumed tofeature invariably the upper note-on-the-beat start. That thisinterpretation s far too rigid I have shown in a recent article.4 In itI have, I hope successfully, tried to prove that even in France thetrill was accorded far more freedom of manipulation than washitherto suspected. The particular points were: (i) that the trill didnot invariably start with the upper note; (2) that the emphasiscould be on the main note instead of the upper one; (3) that thestart with the auxiliary often took place, grace-note fashion, beforethe beat, and finally (4) that whole trills could be anticipated. It wasalso pointed out that Bach, though he learned from the French,never imitated them slavishly; and that German composers headmired offered him models of ornamentation that deviated from theFrench. Some of these composers, n matters of trills, for instance, notonly tolerated a main-note start but distinctly favoured it.

But quite apart from these considerations the thesis that Bach'strills should be accorded a far wider freedom than commonlyassumed is a logical consequence of the following reasoning. If an

appoggiatura-like emphasison the

auxiliaryis built into the trill by

definition, then the trill is simply a sub-form, an ornamented varietyof an appoggiatura. This is how Marpurg explains the trill and thisis what many modern scholars such as Kirkpatrick, Bodky andAldrich consider to be its essential nature. If we accept this premise,does it not stand to reason that the trill could be used only where anappoggiatura on the same note would make musical sense? If trillsshould occur only in such instances, it might be difficult to disprovethis theory. However, one needs only to open almost at random

anyof Bach's works to find trills in

placeswhere an

appoggiaturawould be inappropriate. And of course where an appoggiatura is outof place an appoggiatura-trill s ipso acto also impossible. Here toothere is an opposition between the two extremes of an impossibleappoggiatura-trill on the one side and a near-required one on theother. On the negative side there are first of all the instances ofoffensive parallels, such as:

(a) Invention No.15 (b) WTC I, Fugue 6

t to tiseind trils in p s w e an a gia a is msi

Next to this we find trills in places where an appoggiatura s musicallysenseless (among these ranks high the above-mentioned case of one

4 'Misconceptions about the French Trill in the XVIIth and XVIIIth Centuries',Musical Quarterly, (1964), pp. 188-206.

128


5/9

appoggiatura on top of another), or, in the sense of Agricola, adownbeat trill whose main note is dissonant with the bass (Ex. (a)):

(a) WTC II, Prelude No. 12

; }bbb- S-

(b) 2nd Organ Sonata

6b i' rl ffrOther cases are trill chains, especially when they ascend chromati-

callylike those in the second

organsonata

(Ex. (b) above) (sincenobody would think of saddling chromatic sequences with appog-giaturas) and trills on organ points or other longheld notes (tremble-ment continu) which serve the purpose of sustaining the sound of thatnote. Next in line are cases where, if a trill had not been written, anenlightened performer would not conceive of adding an appoggia-tura as an improvised ornament. Next will be cases where thealternative between yes and no hangs in the balance; after that wearrive finally at those instances where an appoggiatura is well-nigh

required, as in most cadential trills.How then should Bach's trills be performed? Considering thevarious types that are available one could simply say that the oneshould be chosen that in a given situation makes the best musicalsense. For more specific directives it may be practical to divideBach's simple trills into four main categories and call them:

(I) The appoggiatura trill, whose emphasized auxiliary may or maynot be extended in an appui:

a m or.rr r rr ror o r mr

(2) The grace-note trill, starting with the unaccented auxiliarybefore the beat and stressing the main note:

SSiti^STor

(3) The main-note trill, which may or may not start with an appui:

or

(4) The anticipated rill:

or _

To find out which of these types is the best choice in a particularcase, it is suggested at first to leave out the trill, then to consider

I29


6/9

which of the other possibilities listed below in the left column wouldhave been a likely choice for improvised ornamentation. Thesecond column indicates on the same line the type of trill that islikely to fit best for this particular instance:

(a) long appoggiatura appoggiatura trill with appui(b) short appoggiatura unprepared appoggiatura trill(c) grace note grace-note trill(d) none of these ornaments main-note trill, sometimes an-

ticipated trill

The compound rills. The ornament which Bach called a Doppelt-cadence s explained in his table in conformity with d'Anglebert:

It has been taken for granted that in this type of trill, which startswith a turn or an inverted turn, the first note has to coincide with thebeat. However, except for the evidence of the metrical patterns in the

tables, which is very thin indeed,5 there does not seem to be anyconvincing documentary confirmation from the first part of the

eighteenth century that a downbeat start was obligatory. Again therule was made retroactive and deserves all the scepticism of the

analogous rules about the appoggiatura and the simple trill.Couperin, for instance, does not use d'Anglebert's symbol.

Instead he writes out the turn preceding the trill in little notes,which through their spacing in print and their musical context

suggest anticipation. This can be shown for instance in the sarabande'La Majestueuse' from the first ordre of harpsichord pieces. A petitereprise at the end of the piece is followed by another petite reprise whichis more ornamented. A simple trill in the former (a) is changed intoa compound trill in the latter (b) by the insertion of a turn whose

anticipatory nature would be hard to deny:

(a) (b)4W 4W

1r 1r l 'tr

In the gigue from the eighth ordre bar 37, a compound trill is written

out in regularnotes:

xi i snot netricl

In Walther's 'Lexicon', Table V, fig. 2, the pattern is not even metrical.

130


7/9


8/9

? -,iiiii l[I :/ l-- (repercussions? m'

J -~d-~ ~' ~' ~' ~ ' ~ ~ approximate)

The slide. We need touch only briefly on the matter of the slidefor which Bach uses sometimes the symbol: - , sometimes two

little notes: - . Similar considerations apply here too. The orna-ment was occasionally played on the beat, in which case the first notewas usually lengthened: ''^ . On other occasions it was playedbefore the beat, and on still others it may well have been done in a

mixed manner, straddling the beat, so to speak. As usual, the accep-ted version is the downbeat interpretation.

The French called it port de voix double nd seemed to have pre-ferred its upbeat start. In L'Affilard we find the following example :6

Port de voix double- rPort de voix double

Fifty years later the same pattern is shown in the illustration fromVilleneuve which was

presented earlier,7n which the two little notes

in front of a downbeat note are placed to the left of the bar-line.That Couperin used anticipatory slides can be deduced from ex-amples like the following:

ler Ordre, Allemande: ler Ordre, Rondeau: Sylvains', bars 12-13'L'Auguste',bar (b)a) , -,

Ic tF #Y .

In the case of (a) where the lower note of the slide is tied over into thechord, a downbeat start would have undoubtedly been notated like

this: .. In the case of (b) a downbeat start would produce ugly

octaves in the outer voices. As to the Germans, Walther in his'Pracepta' of I708 shows both ascending and descending slides asanticipating the beat.8 Agricola distinguishes two kinds of slides(Schleifer): he fast and even ones, and the slow and dotted ones. Thefast ones he says are sometimes written out by the composer .,~.in a manner belonging to the Lombard taste, whereby the shortnotes are strongly accented. Then he adds: "In contrast thereto a

6 Michel L'Affilard, 'Principes tr&s aciles pour bien apprendre la Musique', 6th ed.(Paris, 1705), pp. 26-7.

7 Music & Letters, anuary 1965, p. I3.8 J. G. Walther, 'Praecepta der musikalischen Composition' (I708, first published

Leipzig, 1955), p. 37.

I32


9/9

slide which fills in a leap and belongs properly to the weak partof the bar must be played more discreetly". 9

These documents give added significance to the fact that severalslides in Bach produce forbidden parallels if played on the beat.The following is an example of fifths in bar 23 of the sarabande fromthe sixth Partita:10

6y' J Off

In the 'Aria variata alla maniera italiana', bar 2, a slide occurs

which precedes a little note that could stand for either a grace note oran appoggiatura. In either case the slide has to be anticipatory:

In the violin obbligato to 'Erbarme dich' from the St. MatthewPassion an upbeat interpretation of the slides is suggested by thefollowing considerations. The start of the melody which carries theslide in the violin part is unadorned at the entrance of the voice:

Violin Solo Er - bar - - - me dich

The anticipation of the slide in the violin would closely parallel theportamento ith which the singer is likely to bridge the intervalsmoothly and expressively. On the other hand, an accented down-beat start of the slide with its intrusion into the domain of themelodic keynote would alter the contour of the melody to a pointwhere its identity with the vocal line would be strongly blurred.

Also,the

anticipation gives far more unity to the phrase, whichcontains several more upbeat slides which are written out and givethe phrase its pleading, submissive character.

To sum up, it may be said that it is necessary to take a new lookat the many restrictive rules and taboos which surround so muchcurrent thought on Bach ornamentation. If we subject all theserules to a thorough scrutiny of their legitimacy in terms of the sound-ness of their logical foundation, in terms of their compatibility withwhat we know about the vast licence accorded to the performer of

the time, with what we know about the essential freedom of orna-mentation as such, and above all, in terms of their compatibilitywith internal evidence from Bach's own works, we can be sure thatmany of these rules will stand revealed to be without foundation.

9 Op. cit., p. 88.10 Other instances are objectionable unisons of voice and viola da gamba in bar 46of the aria 'Komm, siisses Kreuz' and of voice and viola in bars I6 and I8 of the aria

'Mache dich, mein Herze' both from the St. Matthew Passion; and highly improbableunisons in the tenor aria from Cantata 62 in bars 28, 53, 6I, 115 and octaves in bar 33.

I33

Neumann - New Look Bach Ornamentation 2

Documents

Transcript of Neumann - New Look Bach Ornamentation 2