Klarinet Archive - Posting 000366.txt from 1997/06

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu>
Subj: Marty Marks asks about improvisation vs ornamentation
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 22:35:32 -0400

Marty, you are correct. The terms ornamentation and improvisation are
not the same, though I have been using them in that fashion.

Ornamentation is strictly the study of how to perform composer created
ornaments, the operative word being "composer created." Thus the
subject deals with what a player does when he sees Mozart having
written a grace note; i.e., exactly how is the ornament to be
produced under this or that circumstance.

Embellishment is the study of performer created ornaments, the operative
word being "performer created." There are two types of
embellishment, prepared and spontaneous.

In effect, the composer ornaments, the performer embellishes.

Improvisation has come to mean any alteration of the composer created
text by the performer and, while it is supposed to be spontaneous,
it rarely is.

But the three terms have gotten all smashed together and one must
make an effort to separate them, one from the other.

One finds in the last two centuries (particularly with vocal music)
a song of this or that composer with a subtitle of "with ornaments
created by ..." For almost a century, sopranos would do Rossini
arias and state that "Miss xxx will perform the ornaments of Mathilde
Marchesi." As late as Robert Peters at the met in the 1950s the
program would state that "Miss Peters will do Garcia's ornaments
in the aria `Una voce poco fa.'" Now in all three of these
examples, it would have been more correct to say "embellishment"
rather than "ornament" but it is an imperfect world.

So, unfortunately, the terms have become clouded by misuse or
confusion and I was perpetuating that which I should not have done.

It is also true that when a person is improvising s/he is doing so
by means of instantaneously created ornaments, and thus the term
"ornamentation" is not entirely incorrect though things do get
fuzzy from lack of accuracy.

I question how much actual improvisation was done in baroque music,
though I am by no means an expert in that era. Deviations from
the written melodic line came and went with the classic era. So
what one finds in classes on baroque ornamentation is "how to
interpret written ornaments" and one could probably find a class
in that for classical ornaments too. But we are talking about
spontaneous improvisation and that is something quite different
from baroque ornamentation.

But you are right. I should be more precise.

=======================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
Rosanne Leeson, Los Altos, California
leeson@-----.edu
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