# Use of ornaments



## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

Which composer do you think uses ornaments to the greatest affect? I'm listening to Chopin's Nocturne in A flat major Op. 32 and the minore section has that wonderful two acciaturas to kick it off. But, Bach uses ornaments to great affect, too and maybe gets it just right whereas Chopin might be accused of overdoing his works with them. I find it hard to judge.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

You mean acciaccatura I think.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Mordent? ...................


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

I do not know what you mean by ornaments, but the word ornament associated with music conjures baroque and classical period in my mind. Most specifically Mozart. These "ornaments" (=musical clichés) spoil his music for me a little. I noticed the same ornaments in Bach too, although to a lesser extent than with Mozart. Beethoven uses them relatively sparcely. Haydn uses them somethims, but far less often than Mozart. Scarlatti not that much either.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=mordent&rlz=1C1AOHY_en-gbGB708GB708&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwifyPqEg_TaAhXkK8AKHTN_AREQ_AUICigB&biw=1024&bih=681


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

That's what I despise about baroque music - all the ornamentation. Just get sickening to the ear. I Scarlatti harpsichord music is the absolute worst. One composer who uses ornamentation delightfully: Dvorak. Tasteful, appropriate and not overdone.


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## Bluecrab (Jun 24, 2014)

I've always liked Bach's use of ornamentation in his keyboard works. Here's a link to an informative article about his use of ornamentation.

http://www.iment.com/maida/familytree/henry/music/bachnotation.htm


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I like the idea of a performer being able (or even expected to) to improvise ornamentation.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

As a practicing musician I should note some ornaments, such as trills and leaning notes (appoggiatura) are sometimes included in the score. Thus, the concept of "ornamenting" those parts of music is mainly if the practitioner uses a single, double, triple or quadruple trill and how effectively s/he denotes the leaning note. I, like others here, would say there is far more of this in Baroque than other forms of music though it was in all likelihood not included in the signature scores. I often wonder how much of this is added by score editors after the fact.


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## Razumovskymas (Sep 20, 2016)

beetzart said:


> Which composer do you think uses ornaments to the greatest affect? I'm listening to Chopin's Nocturne in A flat major Op. 32 and the minore section has that wonderful two acciaturas to kick it off. But, Bach uses ornaments to great affect, too and maybe gets it just right whereas Chopin might be accused of overdoing his works with them. I find it hard to judge.


A lot of baroque embellishments weren't written out on the score but were supposed to be common practice knowledge for the performers at that time and were supposed to be applied ad libitum and of course according to good taste.

So I guess you'll have to study these baroque scores in detail to determine which is the composers work and which the performers'

Sometimes the embellishments were written out completely but probably for educational purposes only and seldom by the composer himself.

When I hear beautiful baroque embellishments I consider it as a nice symbiosis between composer and performer.

If you ask me of a beautiful example I spontaneously think of Corelli's work. He leaves room for beautiful embellishments so to speak.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

This is Kempff playing the Goldberg Variations, he had a very unusual policy about ornamentation.






Contrast Gould's ornaments here


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## Razumovskymas (Sep 20, 2016)

That Kempff is so weird and illustrates for me that the Goldbergs in my head are actually more Glenn Gould then Bach.


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

Beethoven used to trill to incredible effect in his middle to late piano sonata of course. That incredible trill in the prestissimo in the last movement of the Waldstein is something very special just like the finale to piano sonata in E major No. 30.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Probably no composer depends more heavily on the proper execution of prescribed ornamentation for the effective performance of his music than Francois Couperin. Ornamentation is in fact the essence of his music, and far from sounding as if it has been 'added' to the music, it seems to rise up from within. Unlike most composers of the time, Couperin insisted that his instructions regarding ornaments be followed to the letter and his pieces be played exactly as he wrote them.

The English music historian Charles Burney complained that Couperin's music was 'crouded and deformed by beats, trills, and shakes'. But Couperin was a genius and Burney was incapable of understanding the style.


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