The Ornament That Ate the Phrase
A flautist is preparing a slow movement from a mid-18th-century sonata. The score is a modern edition with no ornament signs in the first strain, but the edition's preface notes that performers of the period 'added graces according to taste'. The student has learned a heavily ornamented version from a recording, including a cadential trill in every phrase and a written-out run at the final cadence. In the trial, the teacher observes that the ornaments obscure the melodic line, that the cadential trills arrive at the same dynamic every time, and that the final run is played faster than the surrounding tempo allows. The assessment rewards 'stylistically informed interpretation'. The student protests that the recording is by a famous player and therefore 'authentic'.
1. Evaluate the student's appeal to the recording as evidence of stylistic authority.
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The appeal confuses one performer's taste with the style itself. Period practice authorised ornamentation as an act of the performer, guided by conventions - placing graces on strong beats or at cadences, varying them, and keeping the melody intelligible. A famous recording is one solution to that problem, shaped by that player's technique, instrument, and acoustic. It is evidence of what is possible, not a rule.
Worse, the student has copied the ornaments without the underlying judgement. The symptoms show this: identical cadential trills in every phrase ignore the convention of varying repeats and cadences; ornaments that obscure the line violate the principle that graces should decorate, not replace, the melody; and a final run faster than the tempo breaks the rhythmic framework the ornaments are supposed to sit within. The student should be able to say, for each ornament, which beat it decorates and what it adds. If they cannot, it is imitation, not interpretation.
2. Propose a revised approach to ornamentation for this movement.
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First, reduce to a plain reading: play the movement with no added ornaments and identify the melodic skeleton and the cadence points. Mark each cadence and decide which ones deserve a trill - typically the final cadence of each strain, not every phrase.
Second, reintroduce ornaments selectively and variably. Keep one or two graces in the first strain, then vary them on the repeat so the second hearing is not identical. Vary the cadential trill's dynamic and length according to its harmonic weight: a weaker internal cadence gets a shorter, softer trill; the final cadence gets the fullest.
Third, control the final run. Set a tempo for the run derived from the movement's pulse, not from the recording, and practise it at that tempo until it is even. If it cannot be played cleanly at that speed, shorten it - a shorter clean run is more stylish than a longer scrambled one.
The principle: ornamentation is a rhetorical choice justified by harmonic and phrase function, and variety across repeats is itself part of the style.