Tables of Ornaments

Couperin printed a table of trills, mordents and appoggiaturas, turning ornament from craft into teachable signs.

Related

BaroqueOrnamentsAppoggiaturaHarpsichord

How many notes a trill should hold, and whether it starts on the beat or before it, was a matter of local opinion in the seventeenth century. Couperin drew the common ornaments as signs, added explanations, and gave ornament a printed instruction sheet.

Time and place

Paris, 1716. Couperin published L'Art de toucher le clavecin with a table of ornaments at the end. An earlier table had appeared in d'Anglebert's harpsichord pieces of 1689, and Bach and Quantz later wrote their own, carrying the story into the middle of the eighteenth century.

What happened

The table listed the trill, the mordent, the appoggiatura, the slide and the arpeggio, each with a sign, a description and a musical example. The sign stood above the note and the player followed the table, trills beginning on the upper note, mordents snapping quickly, appoggiaturas taking part of the main note's value. Couperin also marked which ornaments were required and which optional, drawing the player's freedom into a defined range. The notation spread from the French court, and German and Italian treatises copied it, though each country kept its own signs and ways of playing them.

What changed

Ornament moved from a craft passed between master and pupil to knowledge that could be printed and taught in another city. Publishers could sell French keyboard style abroad, and amateurs could practise from the table. The unity was partly on the surface. The same sign might mean different things in Paris, Dresden and Naples, and a modern player must first decide which national table is in front of them. The signs also made scores more precise, letting composers specify detail rather than only the main notes.

Listen for the turn

Begin with a piece from Couperin's harpsichord books, since the table came from the same hand and what you hear is the table being executed. Then Rameau's first harpsichord book, where ornaments are denser and often written into the melody itself, a contrast with Couperin's restraint. Finally Handel's Harmonious Blacksmith variations, each return of the theme dressed in a new set of ornaments, improvisation and notation coexisting in one composer. All three recordings are on piano, so listen for whether the ornaments land on the beat or before it.

Related

This turn belongs to Baroque; see Ornaments, Appoggiatura and Harpsichord.

Sources

• Grove Music Online, entry Ornaments — tables and dates checked, not quoted
• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., entry Couperin — L'Art de toucher le clavecin checked, not quoted

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.