Ornamentation
4: Application. Terry B. Ewell applies ornamentation to music by
Telemann. Bassoon Digital Professor video #61, 2reed.net.
<Music: “Il Sonno” from Vivaldi's Concerto
for Bassooon “La Notte”>
Well this video on ornamentation is going to apply ornamentation and
actually give you some examples to learn from.
Already on YouTube and www.2reed.net I have a couple of
videos of my performance of Vivaldi's
"La Notte," which is a concerto for bassoon and small string ensemble.
You might want to study that that piece, get the music and see the many
the many ornaments that I
have put into that [piece]. But let's take a look at some
examples here.
There are several places in Baroque music where you should consider
adding ornamentation.
Cadences are one of those places. Not all Baroque music will indicate
trills, but you should
consider that when you're looking at the compositions.
Also with repetitions: Now some repetitions happen due to repeat signs,
where a section is repeated,
but sometimes you have repetitions due to sequences. In either case you
should consider providing
ornamentation on repeated segments to provide interest.
Don't forget to consider articulations and dynamics when you are
varying your music.
Baroque treatises emphasize varied styles of tonguing and often modern
articulation is really
devoid of the different styles of tonguing in Baroque music so you
should consider that. Baroque
tonguing patterns often includes three slurred and one tongued, but
almost never two slurred and
two tongued notes. The pattern two slurred and two tongued notes is
common in the Classical
period and Romantic period but not in the Baroque period. You should
avoid that.
Consider adding dynamics also for added interest. Often you'll hear in
Baroque music the echo
dynamic where you have one phrase played forte, for instance, and then
upon the repetition that
phrase played at a quieter dynamic.
Now, let's consider some music here as we apply our ornaments.
Here is the opening of the Andante movement of the Telemann Sonata in A
minor for bassoon.
This opening passage is repeated so the first time I would play this
without any sort of variation
but the second time I definitely would vary it.
This is common to what I do in my music: I will put in some added notes
here indicating
the ornamentation I'm adding to the music.
This ornamentation I only play the second time around. At the end of
the movement as you can
see there is no trill at the cadence so it is my pattern to add the
trill at the end of the cadence. So
let me begin first by playing for you the of opening segment of this. I
will play it without
ornaments the first time, the way I play it, and then I will play it
the second time with the
ornament. Then I will conclude this by playing the entire first section
of the Andante as I would
play it in the performance.
So now you have had the chance to hear this slightly ornamented
version. You notice that
I kept this movement quite simple. It seemed to be a beautiful melody
so I added just a
few ornaments to provide some variation. Most of the
ornamentation I did was at the beginning of
the Andante.
You might notice that the of the second line I did very little
ornamentation and that was because I
had this dialogue going back and forth between the two voices.
If you had heard this performed with all the parts you would hear that
the the cello or the continuo
part starts out with these of staccato notes. By the way these little
daggers are the way they showed staccato and the Baroque period.
It started out with staccato here and then I have staccato notes that
are imitate that in the bassoon
and this line with 16ths <singing> is imitated then in
the other part. If I had decided to put an
ornament here than I would have asked for the other part to put in an
ornament as well.
You might notice that I did not use vibrato, or at least very little
vibrato. That tends to be my
practice for Baroque music. Vibrato [as we use it now] was actually a
20th century development.
Vibrato in the Baroque time was actually an ornament applied into
certain notes. So I try to
minimize vibrato or use very little when I play Baroque music in order
to focus on the purity
of sound and to try to emulate the style little better.
I hope this is has given you some ideas for applying your ornamentation.
I hope that you will go on to the fifth video where you get a chance to
test yourself and try some ornaments yourself. God bless you, bye.