Grammar of Improvised Ornamentation: Jean Rousseau's Viol Treatise of 1687

Abstract

Many treatises and tutors written for instrumentalists in the 17th and 18th centuries contain instructions for ornamentation, that is, they tell the performer how to get from a sign written on the page to an ornament performed on an instrument.' It is well known, however, that performers of the 17th and 18th centuries often added improvised ornamentation to the music on the page-improvised either in the sense that it was conceived and executed on the spur of the moment or in the weaker sense that it was worked out in advance by the performer and then added to the notes the composer had written. About this improvised ornamentation, the treatises and the tutors do not usually have much to say. They tell how to get from a sign to an ornament, but as to when and how to improvise an ornament, most of them just say that this is a matter of taste and that it must be learned from a teacher. One treatise is strikingly different: Jean Rousseau's TraitW de la Viole, published in Paris in 1687.3 Rousseau treats ornamentation at length in Part 3 of his treatise, but he scarcely mentions the signs for the ornaments at all4 Instead he discusses when and how to add improvised ornamentation to the written music. Here is Rousseau's discussion of the port de voix (rising appoggiatura). The examples he refers to are reproduced in Example 1.