Ornamentation According to C. P. E. Bach and J. J. Quantz.(Brief Article)

by Kris Palmer. 1st Books Library (2595 Vernal Pike, Bloomington, IN 47404), 2001. 188 pp., $11.95.

Kris Palmer writes in the forward to Ornamentation According to C. P. E. Bach And J. J. Quantz that her goal is to give insight to the differences in realizing the ornaments in baroque, rococo and classical music. She examines ornaments found in C. P. E. Bach's A-Minor Flute Concerto, Wq. 166. The first two sections of the book discuss appoggiaturas and trills as found in the A-Minor Concerto, and the last section covers ornaments not found in the piece, but occurring in other C. P. E. Bach flute concerti.

Clearly, the author is knowledgeable about ornamentation, and she attempts to give general guidelines as well as specific suggestions for realizing the ornaments found in these concerti. She points out that Quantz and C. P. E. Bach worked together for almost thirty years in Berlin in the court of Frederick II, King of Prussia. Quantz's On Playing the Flute (1752) and Bach's Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments (1753) are the primary sources referred to in this guide, although Palmer also quotes other scholars such as Robert Donington and Frederick Neumann. Written for the serious instrumentalist, this book has detailed references to the two treatises (with many footnotes).

For a performer learning one of these flute concerti or the keyboard versions of the same works, the book would be invaluable. As a general reference book, however, I found it less helpful, largely because the presentation seemed unnecessarily complicated. For example, there are many musical examples in the book that help illustrate her points, but there are many examples described in words rather than in musical notation. Having a score of the A-Minor Flute Concerto available when reading the book would help clarify things, since the author is careful to indicate measure numbers for each ornament being considered. A second concern is the order in which ornaments are presented--often with the exceptions or inconsistencies presented at the beginning of a chapter before a thorough presentation of the normal conventions. She assumes the reader will already be familiar with those conventions.

Chapter One begin with the variable or long appoggiatura. Palmer quotes from Bach's treatise about the length of the appoggiatura (half to two-thirds of ...