Ornaments, §8: German baroque

8. German Baroque.
Ornamentation in German-speaking regions of Europe during the period 1600–
1750 encompasses a number of distinct traditions. Modern interest in the
subject has focussed on questions arising in the instrumental works of J.S.
Bach, and several relatively late theoretical sources (particularly Quantz,
I1752, and C.P.E. Bach, I1753–62) have been regarded as authoritative. But a
clearer understanding of Bach's ornamentation and that of the German
Baroque as a whole emerges through a broader consideration of surviving
music and documentation.

Perhaps because the practice was so widespread and so fundamental to good

performance, no single word was used throughout the period for what we call
ornamentation. Printz (I1689) discussed a number of ornaments as instances
of figurae (figures), but by the 18th century the most common term for
ornaments was Manieren. Only gradually, however, was the latter identified
with specific melodic decorations. For Bernhard (Ic1649) Manier still had the
general sense of ‘good style’; he used the term Kunststück for specific
ornaments but also for fermatas and dynamics. All were understood, evidently,
as ‘ornaments’ in the classical rhetorical sense that they contributed to the
perfection of a performance.

(i) Sources.
Ornaments are discussed in theoretical sources that range from pedagogic
works (such as Herbst, I1642, 3/1658, and Walther, I1708) to encyclopedic
compendia (PraetoriusSM, WaltherML) and comprehensive treatises on
specific instruments or the voice (Quantz, I1752; C.P.E. Bach, I1753–62;
Agricola, I1757). In addition, ornament tables and verbal explanations of
ornament signs are included in many printed and manuscript sources of
keyboard music, especially after 1700 (see §(v)(a) below). The music itself
frequently provides suggestions for the performance of ornaments and the
realization of ornament signs.

The 17th-century theoretical sources are almost exclusively vocal and

italianate in orientation, intended to convey to Germany the innovations of
Caccini, Monteverdi and other early Baroque Italian musicians. Bernhard and
Mylius (I1685) document the continuation of the Italian tradition at, for
example, the Dresden court under Bernhard's teacher Schütz. Elements of
17th-century terminology and teaching persist in later treatises, many of which
are highly retrospective.

Prefaces and ornament tables accompanying published compositions are the

chief sources on instrumental ornamentation until the very end of the period.
Important early examples are Georg Muffat's introductions to his publications
of music for keyboard (1690) and for instrumental ensemble (1698). Following
the practice of Chambonnières and later French composers, J.C.F. Fischer
published an ornament table in his 1696 volume of keyboard suites; Bach
included a table similarly derived from French models in the manuscript
Clavier-Büchlein for his son Wilhelm Friedemann (1720).

Apart from Mattheson (I1739), the major German treatises of the 18th century
offer little on ornamentation until shortly after 1750, when the Berlin
publications of Quantz (on the flute), C.P.E. Bach (on keyboard instruments)
and Agricola (on singing) provided thorough accounts of the execution of
various ornaments and the appropriate contexts for each. Leopold Mozart's
violin treatise (I1756) agrees with the Berlin treatises on most fundamental
points concerning ornamentation. Modern authors have been strongly
influenced by these treatises, whose rationalistic accounts appeal to students
seeking ‘correct’ realizations of Baroque ornament signs. But the immediate
orientation of these writers is mid-century secular music in the galant style, and
thus their advice cannot be applied automatically to earlier repertories.
Moreover, it is misleading to apply their terminology in older music. For
example, 17th-century sources had no single expression for what came to be
called the trill, and the latter word had several distinct meanings.

Donington (A1963, 4/1989) presents a coherent interpretation of Baroque

ornamentation, derived in part from the late German sources mentioned
above. Neumann (I1978) argues for greater diversity of interpretation, based
on a systematic study of the available sources. (Donington, pp.620–40, replies
to some of Neumann's more controversial conclusions.) Butt (I1994) includes
an analysis of German Baroque theory and pedagogy on ornamentation,
especially in vocal music.

(ii) Historical trends.

Broadly speaking, German Baroque ornamentation closely imitated
contemporary Italian practices during the earlier part of the period, particularly
in vocal music; adopted French practices and ornament signs beginning in the
later 17th century, especially in keyboard music; and synthesized these two
foreign traditions during the 18th century. German Baroque music followed
general European trends in the gradual increase in the number and specificity
of written indications for ornaments in musical scores, as well as in a
proliferation of distinct ornament types as described in theoretical sources. In
addition, there was a shift in the prevailing harmonic function of ornaments:
whereas earlier ornamentation consists predominantly of the insertion of
passing notes between consonances, later ornaments frequently commence
on accented dissonances, used for expressive effect.

17th-century treatises discuss the stylized decoration of individual notes

alongside more elaborate types of embellishment derived from the
Renaissance practice of diminution. The two types of ornamentation become
more distinct in 18th-century sources. Although early composers often failed to
notate any ornamentation, the regular presentation of both types in 17th-
century treatises implies that they were habitually improvised, at least by
soloists.

Virtuosos continued to improvise elaborate embellishments in Italian-style

music through the 18th century. Like Printz (I1676–7) and Niedt (I1700),
Quantz provided numerous examples of embellishments on simple melodic
intervals, and together with C.P.E. Bach and Agricola devoted considerable
attention to cadenzas and other forms of improvisation. Music in the French
style provided fewer opportunities for elaborate soloistic embellishment,
instead favouring ornaments on single notes that could be designated by
signs. Georg Muffat and later composers of French-style instrumental music
evidently envisaged an approach to ornamentation modelled on Lully’s, in
which an entire instrumental ensemble might perform ornaments uniformly,
with little or no improvisation. Nevertheless, except in works for solo keyboard,
explicit ornament signs remain rare until after 1750, apart from the abbreviation
‘t’ or ‘tr’ and the cross (+) sign. Ensemble musicians were evidently expected to
select ornaments on the basis of their understanding of style (or by following a
leader's instructions).

J.S. Bach, the Muffats (father and son) and others followed French
contemporaries in scrupulously marking ornaments in their printed editions of
keyboard music. But manuscripts are often less explicit, suggesting that the
addition of ornament signs was a notational refinement, carried out for the
benefit of students and the public. Copyists and music engravers often altered
signs from those given by the composers, who were themselves not always
consistent in their use of ornament signs: some signs given in ornament tables
appear rarely in actual scores; occasionally, too, one finds several different
signs used for the same effect. Each of these factors creates ambiguity for
editors and performers, despite the apparently explicit notation of ornaments in
18th-century keyboard music.

To what degree French ornaments entered German singing is unclear,

although the strong French element in many compositions must have had
some influence on singers, as in the many arias from Bach's cantatas
employing French dance rhythms. The ornaments described by Agricola –
whose work is an annotated translation of Tosi's 1723 Italian treatise – are not
in fact very distant from François Couperin's, although they are employed in a
different stylistic context. But vocal music never became as explicit as
instrumental in indicating ornaments. Although some relatively early treatises
(e.g. Bernhard and Mylius) used letters and symbols to represent certain vocal
ornaments, these never caught on; most singers evidently relied instead on
their knowledge of style.
(iii) The 17th century: vocal ornamentation.
The style of ornamentation established by Italian solo singers around 1600
appears to have been maintained with little fundamental change in Germany
through the 17th century; even the German names of these ornaments usually
remained Italian (or latinized Italian). The ornaments were rarely notated, and
the treatises are sparing in their advice as to where to apply them; modern
performers must draw conclusions about the proper context of each ornament
from the numerous examples given by Praetorius, Herbst and others. These
examples generally give the ornaments in fixed rhythmic values; how literally
the latter were meant to be interpreted is unclear, but some degree of rhythmic
freedom can be assumed.

The repeated-note trillo was evidently used to the end of the 17th century;
Praetorius's 1619 account was repeated practically verbatim by Herbst in
1658, and the ornament was still described by Printz. These writers mentioned
first a staccato trillo sung on long notes and – apparently – usually written out,
as in the works of Monteverdi (explicitly named by Praetorius). This may be the
type of repeated-note figure that Printz (I1689) termed a bombus (ex.46). But
Praetorius and Herbst also mentioned a second type indicated by the
abbreviation ‘t’, ‘tr’ or ‘tri’. This could fall on short as well as long notes, but in
either case both context and abbreviation may suggest a trill to modern
performers (ex.47). In fact this latter trillo may have been a type of vibrato.
Printz (I1689) seems to have used the term trillo only for this type, although he
also described a trilletto that is much softer (‘viel linder’), its repercussions
barely articulated (‘fast gar nicht angeschlagen’). Bernhard and Mylius used
the term ardire for a similar ornament; Bernhard recommended it particularly in
(vocal) bass parts, but Mylius discouraged its use.

Only after 1700 was the term ‘trill’ consistently applied in the modern way to
oscillating ornaments. In German writings throughout the 17th century the
expression ‘tremolo’ was preferred, referring to ornaments employing lower as
well as upper auxiliaries. The tremolo is shown as occurring on notes of
relatively long value, beginning on the main note and on the beat (ex.48: bar 1
shows the plain long note, bars 2 and 3 two possible types of tremolo).
Praetorius noted that the ornament was more appropriate to instruments than
to the voice. Organists, he said, called them ‘mordents’ (Mordanten); only
around 1700 did the latter term become restricted to the downward-oscillating
ornament.

Ex.46
Ex.47

Ex.48
Praetorius regarded a short version of the tremolo as particularly idiomatic to
keyboard playing. Called the tremoletto, this ornament permitted a variety of
realizations (ex.49), some of them resembling less trills than the ubiquitous
figura corta of German 17th-century instrumental music (ex.49a). In keyboard
and instrumental music, most instances of the abbreviation ‘t’ or ‘tr’ must refer
to this ornament, not the trillo, although the latter term was being applied to the
tremolo and tremoletto by the end of the century.

Ex.49
The groppo (or gruppo) was distinguished from the tremolo by concluding with
a turn, which made it particularly suitable for cadential contexts (ex.50).
Written-out groppi appear fairly frequently, especially in keyboard music from
the first half of the century. But eventually this ornament too came to be
understood as a type of trill and thus could be signified by ‘t’ or ‘tr’, although
the closing turn often continued to be written out.

Ex.50
A longer oscillating ornament, the ribattuta, mentioned by Herbst and later
writers, is already written out in somewhat earlier keyboard works such as
Froberger's Toccata no.9 (Libro quarto, 1656, A-Wn; ex.51). Used to intensify
an entry on a sustained note, it starts on the main note, slowly and sometimes
in dotted rhythm, then accelerates, ending with various terminations. It
continued in use through the 18th century.

Ex.51
Accento was the most widely used of several expressions for a large variety of
passing-note ornaments. Janovka (I1701) gave the term Einfall as a German
equivalent, but the latter seems not to have been much used. Praetorius and
other early sources applied the term to various ornaments encompassing from
one to several notes, but later writers sometimes restricted the term to
particular types of single-note ornament.

One-note accenti appear in most illustrations as short, dissonant auxiliary

notes on the weak part of the beat. Text underlay in vocal illustrations suggests
that the passing note was always slurred to either the preceding or following
main note, as was true of similar 18th-century ornaments. These ornamental
notes were sometimes described as being sung gently, in contrast to the
accented dissonant passing notes of later practice. When sung to the following
syllable, the result was what Bernhard and others called anticipazione della
syllaba (ex.52). The effect desired seems to have been that of a quick, smooth
glide into the following accented note. A different effect was achieved through
the anticipazione della nota, described by Bernhard as an anticipation in the
modern sense and sung to the preceding syllable (ex.53).

Ex.52

Ex.53
Other terms for particular types of accenti include cercar la nota and
intonazione, both used for figures in which a singer approached a note –
especially the initial note of a phrase – from its neighbour, as Bernhard showed
(ex.54). Under the heading accentus Praetorius also illustrated slides
beginning a 3rd, 4th or more below the main note, in varying rhythms (ex.55).

Ex.54

Ex.55
Another type of accento involved a lightly sung escape note, employed before
descending notes, illustrated by Bernhard (ex.56). Adding further ornamental
notes produced what Herbst called the exclamatio. The latter term, for
Praetorius as for Caccini, had signified merely an expressive swell in volume
(‘Erhebung der Stimm’) on a long note. Here it becomes one or more short
rising notes at the end of the long note (ex.57).

Ex.56

Ex.57
Herbst's longer exclamationes today would be considered divisions or
embellishments rather than simple ornaments. Such figures are frequently
written out, like the groppo and ribattuta, in music from throughout the
Baroque, as in Schütz's Saul, Saul (ex.58) and J.S. Bach's Cantata 151
(ex.59). The same is true of the tirate (rapid scale figures) and other florid
devices or passaggi frequently illustrated in 17th-century treatises. Such
figures must have been employed as often by improvising performers as by
composers.

Ex.59

(iv) The 17th century: instrumental

ornamentation.
Vocal treatises indicate that keyboard and instrumental players employed the
same ornaments as singers. But it is rare to find any signs other than ‘t’ or ‘tr’,
which can probably stand for any of the trill- and mordent-like figures described
above. Thus Froberger, whose autograph manuscripts use only this sign
(borrowed from his presumed teacher Frescobaldi), employed it in contexts
evidently calling for a descending tremoletto or mordent (ex.60), an ascending
tremoletto (ex.61) and a groppo (ex.62). Significantly, these examples are all
from a piece in French style (the Allemande of Suite V), but there is no
certainty that at this date (1649) the ornaments were receiving the names or
realizations applied to them in later French practice.

Ex.60

Ex.61

Ex.62
Later music is often more explicit. Numerous accenti appear as one-stroke
signs in the keyboard suites of Kuhnau (I1689) (ex.63; the first one-stroke sign
might represent an acciaccatura struck briefly as the chord is broken). A two-
stroke sign used by the latter signifies a mordent (also in ex.63), but for
Walther (I1708) and others the same symbol indicated a gedoppelter Accent,
that is, a descending anticipazione della nota (ex.64). Walther's illustration
recalls written-out instances of this ornament in early works of J.S. Bach such
as Cantata 106, composed in the older italianate tradition (ex.65). In keyboard
music such as Weckmann’s, however, the context for this sign suggests an
upward passing note (the French port de voix) or mordent (ex.66).

Ex.63

Ex.64

Ex.65

Ex.66

(v) The later 17th and early 18th centuries.

The vocabulary of ornaments in Germany expanded during this period, while at
the same time certain ornaments, such as the repeated-note trillo, fell out of
use. Many German musicians evidently retained the old Italian terms for
ornaments, which continued to receive discussion by Walther (1732) and
Mattheson. But by about 1750 C.P.E. Bach and other German writers were
advocating a highly stylized manner of ornamentation that was reminiscent of
contemporary French approaches yet applied in sonatas, arias and other
Italian genres, thus reflecting the German synthesis of the two national styles.
The discussion below focusses on keyboard sources, since these are the most
explicit with regard to ornamentation, but it is clear that other musicians
employed the majority of the same ornaments.

(a) Ornament tables and signs.

The ornament tables that began to appear shortly before 1700 are one sign of
an increasing concern for the precise notation and performance of ornaments.
Often understood today as instructions for the performance of ornaments, the
tables must have served rather to clarify which signs were used within a given
work for ornaments whose manner of performance was already understood.
For there was no standard system of ornament signs, and the symbols,
realizations and names for ornaments that occur in German ornament tables
are drawn from various sources. Thus J.S. Bach's table for W.F. Bach employs
a sign for the Accent (appoggiatura) shaped like a half-circle or small letter ‘c’,
similar to that used by d’Anglebert and Rameau for the port de voix (ex.67).
But Bach's sign for the mordent resembles that of François Couperin's pincé,
and his table shows several signs that are absent from French sources.
Ex.67
It is unclear whether the proliferation of ornament signs represents an
expansion in the number of actual ornament types or merely greater precision
in their notation, but there was probably an element of both. Georg Muffat
(I1690), for example, used only four signs, all variants of the letter ‘t’, to signify
four distinct types of Triller: short, long, with termination and inverted (i.e. a
mordent). Already a refinement of the old use of a single ‘t’ (for tremolo), this
system was greatly expanded by his son Gottlieb Muffat (1726), whose table
shows five signs for different types of trill alone.

Most of the new signs are commonsense extensions of more basic ones. Thus
in Bach's system the stroke through the middle of a trill sign converted the
latter to a Mordant (ex.68); but the combination Trillo und Mordant produced
what we would call a trill with a closing turn or termination (ex.69). Similarly, a
straight descending stroke continuing into a trill sign indicated an Accent und
Trillo (ex.70). C.P.E. Bach observed in 1753 that most of these signs remained
unknown to all but keyboard players. But appoggiaturas indicated by small
notes are common in many 18th-century repertories, and the accounts of
Georg Muffat (1698), Agricola and others make it clear that instrumentalists
and singers used the same ornaments as keyboard players.

Ex.68

Ex.69

Ex.70

(b) Appoggiaturas.
Figures such as Bach's Accent und Trillo reflect the growing importance of
ornaments that open with an accented dissonance. The result was an
increasingly mannered style of ornamentation based on the displacement of
consonant notes to weak beats, a trend today particularly associated with mid-
century Berlin but widespread elsewhere, particularly in the frequent ‘sigh
motifs’ of early 18th-century music.

Appoggiaturas accordingly received much attention from late Baroque

theorists. Quantz, C.P.E. Bach and Agricola replaced the term accento with
Vorschlag and distinguished between two varieties: ‘variable’ (veränderlich)
and ‘invariable’ (unveränderlich). Both are slurred to the following main note,
thus eliminating the anticipazione della nota and other older types of accento,
which, however, continue to occur as written-out figures.

The ‘invariable’ appoggiatura is a short upper or lower auxiliary note, most

often attached to relatively brief notes. The name is somewhat misleading, for
it might, depending on the tempo and the value of the main note, be either
‘crushed’ against the latter or performed more deliberately. The ‘variable’
appoggiatura precedes a relatively long note, of which it takes half the value
(two-thirds if the note is dotted). Despite suggestions by contemporary
theorists that composers should notate the precise value of ‘variable’
appoggiaturas, this practice came into widespread use only after 1750; in
earlier music the written value of appoggiaturas (when shown as little notes)
appears to have no relation to their intended length.

Modern writers have often applied the mid-century rules governing the length
of ‘variable’ appoggiaturas to the music of J.S. Bach. A literal reading of his
ornament table would indeed give the Accent precisely half the value of the
following note, but this is true also of the French models for the table, and
other sources suggest that French practice favoured shorter appoggiaturas.
Where Bach intended the long ‘variable’ appoggiatura, he appears to have
written it as a regular note, distinguishing it from short appoggiaturas indicated
by signs or small notes within the same piece, as in the F major prelude from
part 2 of the ‘48’ (ex.71).

Ex.71
The ‘variable’ appoggiatura can fall only on the beat, but pre-beat performance
of the ‘invariable’ type persisted in some quarters. In a famous disagreement,
Quantz insisted on pre-beat performance, whereas C.P.E. Bach described it as
odious (‘hässlich’). Their Berlin colleague Agricola, who had studied with both
Quantz and J.S. Bach, prescribed on-beat performance for the descending
Vorschlag but noted that some famous performers (‘einige berühmte
Ausführer’) employed pre-beat performance in the French manner (‘nach Art
der Franzosen’) for the first two instances of the ornament shown in ex.72.

Ex.72
Possibly this ‘French’ manner was employed in earlier German music,
including works of J.S. Bach. Equivocal passages cannot be firmly settled
without recourse to unprovable assumptions. For example, C.P.E. Bach
(i.2.2.17) counselled players to avoid ornaments that disturbed the purity of the
harmony (‘Reinigkeit der Harmonie’), such as by creating parallel 5ths; one
might expect this rule to apply in J.S. Bach's music, dictating pre-beat
performance of the appoggiatura in ex.73. Yet Agricola (p.77) noted that it was
customary to permit such parallels when they were products of short
appoggiaturas and inaudible. On the other hand, it is at least suggestive that
the bare octaves produced by on-beat performance of the appoggiaturas in the
Augmentation Canon from Bach's Art of Fugue (ex.74) can, as Neumann
suggests (p.135), be avoided by the graceful alternative favoured by Quantz
(ex.75).

Ex.73

Ex.74

Ex.75

(c) ‘Mordant’.
The German term Mordant was not exactly equivalent to either the French
pincé or the modern ‘mordent’; thus J.S. Bach used the expression not only for
the mordent as such but also for various turning figures, as at the end of a trill
(see ex.69). But the familiar French sign normally indicated what we call the
mordent in German keyboard music after 1700, including Bach's (see ex.68).
The mordent is often specified in other instrumental repertories as well but was
never considered very appropriate in singing.

(d) Trills.
By 1700 the older meaning of trillo as a repercussive or vibrato-like ornament
was disappearing, and the German term Triller was understood as the
equivalent of the French tremblement. Like Tosi, François Couperin and other
Italian and French contemporaries, German sources distinguished various
types of trill depending on the duration of the ornament as a whole, the
presence or absence of opening ‘preparation’ and closing turn, and whether or
not the initial note is ‘tied’. Only in keyboard music were some of these
distinctions regularly indicated notationally (beginning with Georg Muffat), but
all musicians were expected to be familiar with them. The detailed descriptions
of various types of trills by Agricola and C.P.E. Bach at mid-century flesh out
distinctions evident in earlier ornament tables.

As early as 1698 Muffat stated quite explicitly that trills in music for
instrumental ensemble began on the upper note; the same was indicated in
keyboard ornament tables given by J.C.F. Fischer (1696) and most
subsequent authors. To be sure, exceptions have been noted in treatises from
as late as 1730 (see Neumann, 302–3), suggesting that conservative or
provincial musicians retained older approaches; Walther in 1732 still cited
Printz for examples of the old tremolo. But the overwhelming evidence is that,
except in special cases such as the ribattuta or the Schneller, German trills
after 1700 usually began on the upper note.

Short trills generally lacked a closing turn (Nachschlag) and in quick tempos
might be reduced to a simple upper appoggiatura. On keyboard instruments
certain short trills might be played with a snap of the fingers, producing what
was called by 1750 the half-trill (Halbtriller) or Pralltriller. This is probably the
type of trill called for in the fugue subject from the Toccata in J.S. Bach's Sixth
Partita (ex.76), where the ornament accentuates the upper note of a ‘sigh
motif’. The player probably paused on the main note before proceeding to the
next, as suggested by the entry for Trillo in Bach's ornament table and other
sources (ex.77).

Ex.76

Ex.77
Marpurg (I1755) suggested that quick, snapped trills sometimes started on the
main note, producing a true ‘inverted mordent’ (to use a modern term
sometimes applied to the short trill). This must indeed have been employed by
some players as a simplified form of the short trill, or as a survival of the old
tremoletto, but the major 18th-century sources do not recommend it. C.P.E.
Bach called it the Schneller, always writing it out in small notes on the rare
occasions when his music called for it.

C.P.E. Bach's examples of the Pralltriller are all, in addition, instances of the
‘tied trill’, in which a slur indicates the tying of the initial (upper) note to the
previous note (ex.78). The ornament corresponds to the French tremblement
appuyé et lié. German composers did not always write the slur; in a passage
from the Courante of J.S. Bach's D minor French Suite the slur is nevertheless
implied by the appoggiatura function of the note on the downbeat (ex.79; two
bars later the same figure appears with a slur over all four quavers).

Ex.78

Ex.79
Already indicated by a special sign in the music of Gottlieb Muffat, the tied trill
is a subtle and difficult ornament to perform. Today one often hears the trill
anticipating rather than following the beat, defeating the evident purpose of the
tie, which is to sustain the preceding note into the time of the following one.
There it functions as a momentary suspension before becoming the upper note
of the trill. But pre-beat performance (as a form of tremoletto) might have been
the intention of some older composers (see ex.61); Gottlieb Muffat's father
Georg had no special sign for the tied trill.

Longer trills might be used to sustain a long note and continue it melodically to
the following beat, as in the slurred figure on which J.S. Bach built the
Sarabande of his sixth French Suite, using what he called a Trillo und Mordant
(see ex.69). In ex.80 the closing turn is written out, and in such contexts the
trill was often unmarked, its performance being taken for granted.

Ex.80
C.P.E. Bach and Quantz both indicated that long trills normally ended with a
turn or Nachschlag, even if the latter was not notated, as in ex.81 (from a trio
sonata in Telemann's Essercizi musicali, Hamburg, 1739–40). By this rule it
would be wrong to perform instead an anticipation of the final note, which is
notated explicitly where desired, as in ex.82 (from J.S. Bach, Cantata 210; the
ornament is presumably a short trill without termination). Agricola called for a
turn even after each link in an ascending chain of trills (‘Kette von Trillern’), as
in another passage from Telemann's Essercizi (ex.83). The turns were
apparently omitted in the descending version.

Ex.81

Ex.82
Ex.83
Terminations in the form of turns were expected even on many short trills that
pause before proceeding to the next note. Again, Gottlieb Muffat had a sign for
such a trill; the ornament is similar to the tremblement et pincé illustrated in a
manuscript table of ornaments by Bach's older brother Johann Christoph,
copied from Dieupart's Six suittes de clavessin (Amsterdam, c1701) (ex.84).
C.P.E. Bach was fond of a later version, the prallender Doppelschlag, which
consisted of a Pralltriller followed by a turn or termination; in his illustration
(ex.85) the trill is ‘tied’ to a preceding long appoggiatura. C.P.E. Bach indicated
this ornament with a compound symbol borrowed from François Couperin; J.S.
Bach and others wrote out the closing turn (ex.86; in ex.86b the trill is probably
meant to be ‘tied’).

Ex.84

Ex.85

Ex.86
In long as well as short trills one sometimes finds the initial note explicitly
indicated by a small note (appoggiatura) or other sign (as in exx.70–71).
Included in tables by J.S. Bach and Gottlieb Muffat, this trill corresponds to
Tosi's trillo preparato and Couperin's tremblement appuyé. Agricola, translating
Tosi, declared that a trill must be prepared (‘vorbereitet’) if it is to be beautiful
(‘schön’); nevertheless, the appoggiatura (Vorschlag) need not always be
lengthened. This suggests a distinction between ordinary ‘unprepared’ trills
and ‘prepared’ ones in which the first note is lengthened, perhaps for
heightened accentuation or expressivity. Agricola followed Quantz in
identifying the initial note of the trill as an appoggiatura (Vorschlag); although
Quantz's examples show the latter as a separate small note, it was
nevertheless for him an essential element of every trill.

Modern writers generally assume that this ‘appoggiatura’ always falls on the
beat, but the point is rarely made explicit in the treatises, although it is the rule
in musical illustrations. Quantz, however, implicitly allows pre-beat
performance in some contexts, as when the first note would function as an
unaccented passing note or coulé in the French style. Whether J.S. Bach or
others employed this practice, as in the Gigue of his second French Suite
(ex.87), is impossible to say.

Ex.87
J.S. Bach and Gottlieb Muffat are among those whose keyboard works
occasionally use trills prefixed by turns or slides, which C.P.E Bach later
described as trills from above and from below (‘von oben’ and ‘von unten’)
(ex.88). The prefix, sometimes written out in the form of one or more small
notes, may also have been added improvisatorily to many ordinary trills. J.S.
Bach's term for the figure was Doppel-Cadenz, an expression sometimes
applied by others to the long cadential trill with termination (see ex.69).

Ex.88
Few German composers before 1750 followed Couperin in specifying any
chromatic alteration of the auxiliary notes in trills or other ornaments. Georg
Muffat (I1690) called for the large half-step (‘grosser Halb-Thon’) in mordents,
implying frequent chromatic alteration of the auxiliary to constitute a leading
note, so long as it does not displease the ear (‘wofern es nur nicht übel in die
Ohren fället’). Modern advice generally follows C.P.E. Bach in drawing
auxiliary notes from the scale of the currently tonicized key, but Gottlieb Muffat
frequently specified more liberal use of chromatic auxiliaries by setting
accidentals beside the ornament signs (ex.89).

Ex.89
18th-century writers sometimes advised against certain obsolete or otherwise
irregular types of trill, thus suggesting that they were in fact used by some
performers. Quantz (9.2–4), although counselling that the speed of a trill
should be appropriate to that of the tempo of a piece in general, condemned
very slow trills, which he said were typical of French singing. He also
proscribed trills in 3rds ‘except, perhaps, upon the bagpipe’ – an instrument
that J.S. Bach imitated in the Musette of his sixth English Suite by writing out
such a trill. Trills in 3rds are also occasionally written out in his early toccatas,
and in some older 17th-century organ and violin music.

Whatever the type of trill, each note of the ornament was expected to be
clearly articulated and in tune. Hence Agricola's detailed comments on
appropriate vocal technique; he required that trills be produced from the throat
and not merely by ‘bleating’, as in the ‘goat trill’ (Bockstriller) to which Quantz
also objected. Quantz showed similar attention to details, providing special
fingerings for trills on certain notes where they would otherwise be difficult to
produce.

(e) Turn.
The turn, although similar in shape to the old circolo – a type of division
illustrated by Printz (I1689) and Janovka – is closely related to the trill and
appoggiatura in its 18th-century German versions. It seems to have been
primarily a keyboard ornament, poorly attested in sources for other media.
Mattheson referred to it by the old terms groppo and circolo mezzo; J.S. Bach
knew it by the French name cadence, and later it was termed the
Doppelschlag. It differs from the older French double cadence of, for example,
Chambonnières (1670), in beginning on the note above the main note rather
than on the latter. Moreover, in slower tempos or on longer notes it might
occupy only the beginning of the note's value, as Gottlieb Muffat's table
suggests (ex.90). The sign is sometimes displaced to the right, in which case
the ornament is delayed, as C.P.E. Bach shows (ex.91; typical here are the
positioning of the accidental above the turn sign, the staccato note c″ in the
realization of the ornament, and the shortening of the following d″ to half its
original value). J.S. Bach and others frequently wrote the sign in upright form,
but the spatial orientation of the symbol became significant only with later
composers. Thus C.P.E. Bach inverted the usual symbol to indicate an
inversion of the ornament, although he considered the latter a form of slide
(Schleifer) (ex.92).

Ex.90

Ex.91

Ex.92

(f) Slide.
The slide, like the turn, resembles an earlier ornament, the intonazione. 18th-
century slides were closely related to broken chords that incorporate passing
notes (acciaccaturas or coulés), as is clear from the sign employed for this
ornament by Gottlieb Muffat (ex.93; cf ex.96). For slides Kuhnau (1689) had
already used the name Schleifer, which later became the usual German term;
unlike his successors he recognized a descending as well as an ascending
form. J.S. Bach adopted Kuhnau's sign for the ascending slide; unfortunately,
in Bach's more hastily written manuscripts the sign appears virtually identical
with a small note. The resulting copyist errors have been perpetuated in some
editions, as in the B minor flute sonata (ex.94). C.P.E. Bach and other late
writers are clear about placing the slide on the beat, but this was not always
true of earlier forms of the ornament. Georg Muffat (1698) regarded the on-
beat slide as a variety of esclamazione, illustrating it alongside a post-beat
instance. Both forms of the slide occur as written-out figures in the music of
J.S. Bach and his contemporaries.

Ex.93

Ex.94
Further variants of the slide are shown in the treatises of Agricola and C.P.E.
Bach together with other varieties of compound appoggiatura. The most
important of these is perhaps the double appoggiatura (Anschlag), which
became a favourite in the mid-century Berlin style and must have derived from
opera seria. It has no special sign but was indicated by small notes (ex.95).

Ex.95

(g) Other ornaments.

Although the repercussive trillo and trilletto of the earlier Baroque fell out of
favour, vibrato was described as an ornament in the 18th century, occasionally
under the term ‘tremolo’ (Mattheson, L. Mozart), more often as Bebung. It was
probably confined to special contexts, such as the sustained chromatic notes
over which J.S. Bach occasionally placed long wavy lines (see Neuman, 519–
20). Quantz (14.10) and Agricola (pp.121–2) mentioned its use on certain long
notes, implying its absence elsewhere.

German woodwind, string, lute and clavichord players evidently produced a

type of Bebung analogous to the French flattement. Unlike the Tremulant of
the organ, which produced an intensity vibrato on every note, this was a pitch
vibrato produced by rocking the hand or finger, as in a trill, but without actually
articulating the adjacent note. The lutenist Ernst Gottlieb Baron (I1727)
employed signs for two distinct types of vibrato, used to emphasize certain
accented notes. Keyboard music lacks a sign for it before the first (1753)
volume of the treatise by C.P.E. Bach, who used it only rarely afterwards.

Among other ornaments arising out of idiomatic vocal and instrumental

techniques, the various types of keyboard arpeggiation (Brechung or
Harpeggio and the like in German sources) are among the most common.
They appear to differ little from their French counterparts. They were
apparently not recognized as ornaments until the late 17th century; Kuhnau
and Georg Muffat made no mention of them. Inconsistent use of signs
occasionally creates ambiguities. For example, a diagonal stroke between note
heads sometimes indicates the incorporation of a passing note into an
arpeggio, as in J.S. Bach's third English Suite (ex.96); Marpurg and Kirnberger
(1771–9) referred to this variety of the French coulé as an accentuirte
Brechung. But the same sign could also stand for the simple breaking of a
chord, perhaps in measured rhythm as Walther showed in his 1708 treatise
(ex.97).

Ex.96

Ex.97

David Schulenberg