Early Music Trill Question, style, taste or convention? Options

[Mad Tom]

I don't understand this need to find cut and dried rules from some higher authority in order to do the "correct" thing.

Surely you should study all you can to understand what the composer was trying to achieve and why, what was conventional at the time and why, what is generally done nowadays and why and then, with all this background knowledge, and with a clear idea of what you, as the recreative artist are trying to project, and who is going to hear it, make up your own mind.

Bach didn't indicate phrasing or tempo, and left it to the performer to decide where to play legato and where to play staccato. Also his keyboards were not capable of gradation of dynamics or isolated accents either, but careful use of dynamics can clarify the lines in a fugal style of composition. A Bach score is closer in spirit to the script of a play than an engineering blueprint or a computer program.

In fact there is no almighty power checking up that we all do our best to arrive at the one correct way of performing each piece. You don't even have to play the piece the same way in every performance. You can vary tempo, phrasing, dynamics, just for the sake of variety, and reveal different aspects of the piece each time.

If the performer is to be trusted with the massive difference that those four dimensions can make to a performance I don't see why you should not also play the trill as you see fit for your conception of the piece, on a modern instrument for some particular audience.

In computer programming there is a languiage called PERL that has the motto "There is more than one way to do it". That would be a pretty good motto for interpreters of Bach.

[Cadence]

I agree with what you have said entirely Mad Tom. No one has said that there at any time that there is a "need to find cut and dried rules from some higher authority in order to do the "correct" thing".

All that I am doing is finding out what people here think is general convention for this type of trill, as I don't have time over the next couple of days to go down to my music library. And once I have found out what is generally expected of trills of this sort, I will take that into account and play around with it until I find what fits best with me for my performance of the music, which may or may not be what has been described in these posts, or indeed what is the 'norm'.

[Robodoc]

. . . In computer programming there is a languiage called PERL that has the motto "There is more than one way to do it".

Hence Knit one, Perl one?? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Mad Tom]

I agree with what you have said entirely Mad Tom. No one has said that there at any time that there is a "need to find cut and dried rules from some higher authority in order to do the "correct" thing".

And the comment was not directed at you!

All that I am doing is finding out what people here think is general convention for this type of trill, as I don't have time over the next couple of days to go down to my music library. And once I have found out what is generally expected of trills of this sort, I will take that into account and play around with it until I find what fits best with me for my performance of the music, which may or may not be what has been described in these posts, or indeed what is the 'norm'.

Excellent.

[Robodoc]

In computer programming there is a languiage called PERL that has the motto "There is more than one way to do it". That would be a pretty good motto for interpreters of Bach.

Does PERL also point out that while there is more than one way to do it right there are an infinity of ways to do it wrong?

[Mad Tom]

Does PERL also point out that while there is more than one way to do it right there are an infinity of ways to do it wrong?

It leaves you to discover that for yourself. Which does not take long.

[YetAnotherPianist]

Also his keyboards were not capable of gradation of dynamics or isolated accents either

I'm surprised you made this slip, Tom - Bach's love of the clavichord is well known, in part because it is capable of dynamics and accents. If you haven't had chance to play one, I'd encourage you to have a go - from my experience, early 18th century clavichords are more than capable of providing a flexible palette on which to base ones renditions of Bach. For further reading, have a look at an article from Early Music:

http://em.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/XXVIII/1/140

A Bach score is closer in spirit to the script of a play than an engineering blueprint or a computer program.

Yes and no. Yes, insofar as interpretation is of course needed; but no in that Bach had less intention for people to Richard around with his music than others such as Telemann; e.g. he writes out many more of his ornaments and cadential passages in full. But then, if your argument is that we can wrap his remains in copper wire, place a magnet at his headstone, and generate electricity by making him spin in his grave, I suppose you can do whatever you want (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif).

In fact there is no almighty power checking up that we all do our best to arrive at the one correct way of performing each piece.

Other than examiners.

In computer programming there is a languiage called PERL that has the motto "There is more than one way to do it". That would be a pretty good motto for interpreters of Bach.

But then again, unless one runs perl -w, it won't warn when performing string concatenation with undefined variables. As such, it's generally a good idea to run -w at least once in a while; and here, similarly, to subject ones interpretation to closer scrutiny.

[Solari]

In computer programming there is a languiage called PERL that has the motto "There is more than one way to do it". That would be a pretty good motto for interpreters of Bach.

Should that read "There is more than one way to obfuscate things"? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

Yuck, Perl... I avoid at all costs unless I need to do date+time calculations or something similar (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) bash scripting/hacking FTW (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[kenm]

I don't know the piece in question but the general rule for pre-classical music is to start the trill from the note above. I think there is an exception where you start the trill on the note (possibly if the note before was the note above?), but that doesn't happen very often.

Yes, I have heard precisely that rule too.

Chopin is on record as having criticised Hummel for "the modern habit of starting the trill on the note", which suggests that the convention transferred from the Baroque keyboards to the Classical piano.

Especially, but not only, when the trill is on the leading note at a cadence leading to the tonic, there appears to have been a convention to finish a long trill with a turn to the note below, e.g.

....CBCBCBAB|C--

The turn was typically not notated in the orchestral parts of the Beethoven symphonies, but Liszt added this figure (a "nachslag") to at least some of Beethoven's trills in his piano duet versions of these works, written some decades later for amateurs who, he suspected, would not have known the convention.

C P E Bach recommends that the nachslag be notated in full but also shows it indicated by appending a mordant sign to a trill sign (the sawtooth, not "tr"); my opinion is that JSB would have indicated this where he wanted it.

[PianoDoodler]

Disclaimer: everything that follows is a statement of my opinion. I may be wrong as I am not a Baroque expert.

In Bach's case, his ornamentation rarely leaves any doubt as to how to start a trill. YAP's screenshot looks like the same one I have at the start of my edition of the Goldberg Variations. Follow Bach's directions and I will not go far wrong, is the principle I adopt.

Trills in general sound better when started on the upper note throughout the Baroque, Classical and early Romantic periods. Baroque trills sound even better when the first and last notes are longer than the intervening ones - a frequent characteristic of Haydn's trills as well - and the quicker notes are measured rather than a frantic wafting of the fingers.

Smashing thread this one, cadence. It is great to read other opinions about this subject.

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[Mad Tom]

under pain of death, you must start on the upper note.

This way overstates the case ...
... but this ...

Follow Bach's directions and I will not go far wrong, is the principle I adopt.
Trills [i]in general sound better when started on the upper note throughout the Baroque, Classical and early Romantic periods.

Is rather more balanced and seems to sum it the practical choice: Usually starting on the upper note sounds better (but now and again it does not).

[YetAnotherPianist]

under pain of death, you must start on the upper note.

This way overstates the case ...

Is this one big wind-up? My post was on the topic of the ornament on the last beat in a bar in the first movement of Bach's second partita. Original source clearly indicates an ornament starting with a lengthened upper note - the | before the trillo symbol leaves precisely no ambiguity in this regard. This symbol was not preserved in the original poster's edition, having been replaced with the entirely unhelpful tr by an over-zealous editor, and from thence the confusion arose.

[anacrusis]

PDs reply highlights something else I'd always done automatically without understanding it: the concept of a degree of expressiveness to a trill, rather than the frantic as-short-a-subdivision-of-the-beat-as-can-be-managed version also often heard; for those trills ending in a turns, that's another place where it works better if the turn is not just dismissively shot through at top speed. Maybe that is part of the problem with modern perception of baroque music - that it is rigid, strictly conforming to the text and lacking in emotion: it is none of these things. Rubato as found in later music doesn't work, neither does an overlaid thick and shapeless vibrato, but that does not mean you can't be expressive with it, and maybe those who dismiss Bach's music as just a lot of notes haven't really heard how it can be done to proper effect.

[Roseau]

PDs reply highlights something else I'd always done automatically without understanding it: the concept of a degree of expressiveness to a trill, rather than the frantic as-short-a-subdivision-of-the-beat-as-can-be-managed version also often heard;

My teacher refers to the later as "electrified" trills (the result of the musician having stuck his fingers in an electric socket) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[PianoDoodler]

PDs reply highlights something else I'd always done automatically without understanding it: the concept of a degree of expressiveness to a trill, rather than the frantic as-short-a-subdivision-of-the-beat-as-can-be-managed version also often heard; for those trills ending in a turns, that's another place where it works better if the turn is not just dismissively shot through at top speed.

This is your instinctive understanding of how to play trills expressively. A good trill is like a good book in having a beinning , middle and end.

A Baroque trill is most likely to start with a long upper note, followed by a measured alternation, finishing on the melody note at roughly the same length as the first.

A Classical trill is most likely to start on the upper note but without the pause. The trill starts more slowly and accelerates, then decelerates towards a turn at the end.

Trills were used less frequently during subsequent years. Chopin was a master of them, and usually used grace notes to tell players how to start and end them.

All of these points are generalisations of more-or-less accepted practices. Of one thing there is no doubt; a beautifully-played trill is a joy to hear.

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