Re: Ornamentation

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 22:55:19 -0500, "Jon Slaughter"
<Jon_Slaughter@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>On page 108 of Piston's harmony he shows an example by Beethoven and
>mentions that the second phrase is a "boisterously ornamented version".
>


>Anyways, Maybe someone can see something that I'm not...

Ornamentation of a theme was a common device at the time. It's a
little world all of its own. You'll find examples everywhere -- in the
Bach keyboard suites etc.

Ornamenting rondo themes on their return developed into a game in
itself, combined with every more ornamental ways of getting back to
the theme.

In the public bull pit, matador musicians would do battle with their
decorative swords. Beethoven tried to make fools of the competition by
inserting almost unplayable triple-trills and the like in his early
variations.

CPE Bach's book on keyboard playing has an enormous chapter on
ornamentation. It dominates the book. By the time Beethoven came along
these twiddly passages were already starting to get a bit passe. His
usage changes radically in his later years. But, in a piece like the
Archduke, the mannerist ornamental was well at home.

There are dozens of different ways Beethoven might have chosen to
orament this, or any other passage. What he's done is faintly
ridiculous and Piston is right to call it "boisterous" -- it's
Beethoven in his famous "unbuttoned" mode.

All Beethoven needs to hit are the notes of the underlying melodic
line, beginning <D Eb |F |G Ab |Bb ...>. The rest is filled in
by the memory of the listener. His choices are determined by an
aesthetic honed by hearing thousands of similar passages.

I'd love to know how many pianists religously get those quintuplets
right in performance. I think they just speed up a bit to make the
phrase fit. The same goes for his groups of 13, 15 etc.


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