Paul Badura-Skoda
Let’s get rid of the wrong pralltriller!
In memory of Gustav Leonhardt, whose untiring striving for the truth made a deep impression on me.
I t might come as a shock to some readers that the
pralltriller (half shake, inverted mordent), as per-
formed by the majority of today’s keyboard players
with a start on the upper note, is an invention of the
20th century and did not exist in keyboard music of
the 18th century.
This new ornament was created by the great
Polish-born harpsichordist Wanda Landowska
(1877–1959), a pioneer in the reintroduction of the
harpsichord into the European and American music
scenes 100 years ago, and a leading figure in the per-
formance practice of early music at the beginning
of the 20th century. Her merits are beyond doubt.
However, as with pioneers in all fields, she occasion-
ally committed errors resulting from wrong deduc-
tions or premature conclusions. One hundred years
of musicological research since her early activities
have brought to light many sources that would have
been unknown to her. One of her greatest errors con-
cerns the ‘short shake’, usually called the pralltriller.
She believed she had restored the true execution of
Bach’s most frequent ornament, and that pianists
and organists of the past 100 years had played it in
the wrong way. Her principal evidence was appar-
ently the description of the pralltriller in the famous
treatise Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu
spielen,1 by Bach’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel. In his
chapter on ornamentation the pralltriller appears in
this form (ex.1):
Ex.1
Early Music, Vol. xli, No. 1 © The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1093/em/cat019, available online at www.em.oup.com
At first sight, this example seems to justify
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Landowska’s execution—the tie between the first
two notes is missing. However, what she did not
know was that this was a printing error. The error
occurred in the first edition of the Versuch but was
corrected in the second and all subsequent editions.2
Furthermore, even in copies of the 1753 edition,
C. P. E. Bach made handwritten corrections in cop-
ies destined for dedicatees. His improved description
reads thus: ‘Even though the slur covers all notes,
every note has to be struck with the exception of the
second g and the last one which are connected by a
new tie. The large slur indicates the necessary legato.’
Wanda Landowska and her students played nearly
all pralltrillers with a start on the upper note (as in the
example above), even in descending stepwise passages
where the main-note start had been the rule in the 18th
century. The ‘Landowska trill’ (as I call it) spread like
a virus, first among harpsichordists, then (since Glenn
Gould and his imitators), also among pianists. Without
ever being questioned it found its way into countless
textbooks and annotated editions. I admit that I too was
infected by the virus and performed this ornament the
wrong way for more than 20 years, until I realized that
it had no foundation in Bach’s or Mozart’s time. The fol-
lowing investigation will demonstrate that the modern
pralltriller, the ‘Landowska-trill’, is historically wrong
and needs to be replaced by the correct execution.
There are three ways to help us understand how
composers played their ornaments, or wished them
played: contemporary teaching methods; ornaments
written out by the composers themselves; and the
practical playing possibilities of keyboard instru-
ments. (An important fourth source of evidence is
valid only for composers of our age or of the recent
past: oral tradition and recordings.)
113
Keyboard methods
C. P. E. Bach: Versuch über die wahre Art das
Clavier zu spielen (Berlin, 1753)
The Versuch is one of the most important treatises of
the 18th century. It is far more than a simple keyboard
method and remains one of the most important
sources for our understanding and interpretation
of 18th-century music, and in particular the works
of Johann Sebastian Bach, Emanuel’s father, whom
the latter refers to as his greatest teacher. This book
also influenced theorists until well into the 19th
century. C. P. E. Bach describes two forms of the
pralltriller: (i) the connected (slurred) pralltriller
preceded by the neighbouring note above (ex.2);
(ii) the free pralltriller on any other note, which he
calls Schneller, and for which he provides a different
notation, with two small notes (ex.3).
Ex.2
Ex.3
This example is reminiscent of the same motif in
J. S. Bach’s Partita in E minor, bwv830, in bars 27–83
of the opening toccata (ex.4):
Ex.4
Nearly all harpsichordists play it the ‘Landowska
way’ (ex.5):
Ex.5
114  Early Music  February 2013
The distinction between the two forms of the
same ornament was one of C. P. E. Bach’s theoretical
hobby-horses. Since, at this time, all long trills were
supposed to start with the upper note, his notation
(ex.2) is derived from the French tremblement lié or
appuyé. But in case such a preceding note did not
exist, an ornament starting ‘against the rule’, with
the main note, needed a different symbol and name;
he called it the Schneller. It is noteworthy, however,
that neither the name nor its notation were ever
fully accepted. Symbols for ornaments are, by their
nature, abbreviations. Yet a notation of two notes for
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an ornament of only two notes is no abbreviation
at all! So it happened that the symbol Î remained
in use until the 20th century, regardless of which
note preceded this two-note ornament. Even C. P. E.
Bach himself occasionally confused the two forms,
and wrote the pralltriller symbol where a Schneller
was intended.
J. S. Bach: Explication unterschiedlicher Zeichen,
so gewisse Manieren artig zu spielen, andeuten
(Cöthen, 1720)
The most important source for the execution of
J. S. Bach’s ornaments is, of course, Bach himself.
Although the only instruction he left is the well-
known short table of ornaments he compiled for the
young W. F. Bach in 1720, it yields more information
than we might expect. Look at the last two exam-
ples of his table (ex.6). This is nothing other than a
pralltriller with two more notes; and it is perfectly
clear that it starts with the main note c and without
any delay. Yet Glenn Gould and his imitators used to
play this ornament in the opposite way (ex.7):
Ex.6
Ex.7
J. C. F. Bach: Musikalische Nebenstunden
(Rinteln, 1787)
Another important source of information is Bach’s
second youngest (and longest-surviving) son Johann
Christoph Friedrich Bach (1732–95). In this treatise
he describes the pralltriller in the following way
(ex.8):
Ex.8
His notation in the original is slightly inexact but
the meaning is clear: start on the main note.3
Similar explanations of the pralltriller can be
found in nearly all German keyboard treatises of the
18th century. They usually follow C. P. E. Bach’s ter-
minology: if the preceding note is one step higher
they use the term pralltriller, if it is another note
they call it Schneller. Here is a selection of those trea-
tises, in date order:
Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg (1718–95), Die Kunst das
Clavier zu spielen (Berlin, 1750, enlarged edition 1762)
Johann Lorenz Albrecht (1732–68), Gründliche Einleitung
in die Anfangslehren der Tonkunst (Langensalza, 1761)
Georg Simon Löhlein (1725–95), Clavier-Schule (Leipzig,
Füllichau, 1765)
Daniel Gottlob Türk (1750–1813), Clavierschule (Leipzig
and Halle, 1789)
Johann Friedrich Nagel (1759–91), Kurze Anweisung zum
Klavierspielen (Halle, 1791)
Türk’s Clavierschule is by far the most important
keyboard tutor school after C. P. E. Bach’s. He is the
first to mention the confusion surrounding the two
different terms and cites a few examples by contem-
porary composers, including C. P. E. Bach, who used
the symbol Î where, according to the theory, two
semiquavers should have been printed.
The consensus of these writings leaves no doubt
that in the 18th century the pralltriller started with the
main note. Incidentally, they all agree that the general
rule for the longer trill was to start with the upper note
(with a few exceptions à la Rameau). In order to avoid
any misunderstanding, I should say that I, of course,
play long trills in 18th-century compositions with an
upper-note start,4 but I  also acknowledge that there
exist a few places where either a pralltriller (with start
on the main note) or a longer trill (with upper note
start) can be played. If in these rather infrequent cases
a longer trill is played with a point d´arrêt (‘standstill’)
it may sound like a Landowska trill. Thus it may appear
that I have opened a ‘back door’ to the execution of that
ornament. Not at all—I just note that in my lifelong
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experience as a performer and researcher I have come
to the conclusion that ornamentation has always been
a flexible matter and that any attempt to put it into a
straitjacket has so far failed.
It should be noted that a very small minority of
authors who apparently only knew the 1753 edition
of the Versuch took the printing error at face value
and omitted the tie between the first two notes. One
of these was the Anleitung zum Klavier by Franz
Xaver Rigler (Vienna, 1779).
Several of the treatises listed above must have
been known to Landowska and her circle. Yet she
thought, and taught, that these explanations did
not concern the ornaments of J. S. Bach and that
they were intended for later generations. Typical of
the authoritative style of her teaching is a passage
found in the harpsichord method by her student Eta
Harich-Schneider (1897–1986):5
A free-entering pralltriller does not exist in Bach’s works.
Even the short shake is played (ex.9) and the trill con-
nected with the preceding higher note is nothing other
than the ‘tremblement appuyé’. If it appears in the form
of (ex.10)
Ex.9
Ex.10
it might be misunderstood by superficial [sic!] readers
that Bach started here a trill on the main note.6
Early Music  February 2013  115
I am superficial enough to take Bach at face value!
Written-out notations of ornaments by the
great composers
Ornaments are mostly abbreviations for frequent
combinations of notes. They are helpful to composers
and performers alike to make a musical text readable.
However, as in spoken language it happens from time
to time that a word or a succession of notes is writ-
ten out in full in order to make a statement clearer or
to avoid misunderstandings. Such is the case 75 years
after J. S. Bach in the first movement of Schubert’s
A minor Sonata op.42, d845. In order to make sure that
in bars 115 and 117 d"y and e"y were played, Schubert
first wrote two small notes, followed by the symbol for
pralltriller on repetition (ex.11).
Ex.11
Similar ‘clarifications’ were used long before
Schubert by Mozart, Haydn and—fortunately for
us—by Bach himself. A beautiful example of a writ-
ten-out mordent is found in the autograph manu-
script of the Fantasy in C minor bwv906 (ex.12):7
Ex.12
In the same way, Bach also notated some of his prall-
trillers. The best-known example is found in bar 17
of the Fugue in A  minor from the Well-tempered
clavier, Book 1 (bwv865) (ex.13):
Ex.13
116  Early Music  February 2013
The reason for this notation seems to be obvious:
had he used the pralltriller symbol Î (ex.14), the sec-
ond note might have been read as f"} instead of f"!.
Incidentally, his son Carl Philip Emanuel would have
called this ornament a Schneller, because the preced-
ing note is not an f" but a g'.8
Ex.14
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One further lesson can be learned from the pre-
ceding examples: in not one composition by Bach,
Haydn, Mozart and later composers does the
‘Landowska-trill’ ever appear in written-out notes.
Thus it can be deduced that those masters did not
use it.
In my opinion, the documentation presented here
speaks for itself. However, in order to complete the
above list, I shall briefly touch upon the third point.
Practical playing possibilities on keyboard
instruments
One example among hundreds may suffice, namely
the Allemande from Bach’s first Partita, bwv825,
bars 14–15 (ex.15).
Ex.15
Even at a moderate tempo the Landowska-trill is
unplayable (at least for my own fingers).
It is time, therefore, that we change our minds with
regard to this ornament.
When, for example, the excellent pianist and
Bach interpreter Andras Schiff starts the C major
Invention no.1 bwv772a this way (ex.16):
Ex.16
he is mistaken, from a historical point of view. It has
to be admitted, though, that for listeners of our time
this interpretation might have a pleasing effect. The
correct execution (ex.17) is:
Ex.17
seem justified, because here the wavy line is simply
too long, an error which, in similar places, had been
criticized by Forkel. But fortunately there exists the
handwritten copy by Anna Magdalena Bach in her
Notenbüchlein where these ornaments are clearly
written as pralltrillers. (Her handwriting was so
close to that of her husband that for a long period
this copy was thought to be a Bach autograph.)
Here is the wrong execution as suggested by Ralph
Kirkpatrick in his 1938 Schirmer edition (ex.19),10
and the correct execution, according to the instruc-
tions given by Bach’s sons (ex.20):

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There is a ‘crown witness’ for this reading: Johann
Nikolaus Forkel (1749–1818), author of the first
Ex.19
biography of Bach (1802). Forkel took lessons from
Bach’s eldest son Wilhelm Friedemann and also knew
C. P. E. Bach (whom he wanted to succeed as organist
in Hamburg). In a letter of 21 December 1801 to the
publisher Hoffmann & Kühnel he stated that the
pralltriller mainly appears in descending passages
and consists of two notes: namely the main note and
the note above9. We may assume that he had first- Ex.20
hand knowledge: this very Invention was written by
J. S. Bach into the Clavierbüchlein he compiled for
his eight-year-old son Wilhelm Friedemann.
Another example of a frequent mistake occurs in
the Aria of the Goldberg Variations, bar 10 (and also One further reason for dispensing with the
bars 21–2); see ex.18 for bars 10 and 21. wrong execution of the pralltriller needs only a
brief mention here: the ‘Landowska trill’ frequently
Ex.18 leads to consecutive 5ths or octaves, while the
main-note start of the ornament creates correct
voice-leading.11
It is time to correct a century-old mistake: only
in the 20th century was the old ‘inverted mordent’
Most harpsichordists play a Landowska-trill here, converted into the ‘perverted mordent’. Let us play it
starting with the upper note g.  At first sight they again the original, correct way!

Austrian pianist and scholar Paul Badura-Skoda has specialized in performing the keyboard works
of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, but has an extensive repertory and has made more than 200
recordings. He has also produced numerous editions, articles and books on Bach, Haydn, Mozart,
Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Brahms and others. paul@badura-skoda.com

1  Carl Philip Emanual Bach, Versuch 2  Strict adherents to the ‘upper-note that the ‘Landowska-trill’ remains
über die wahre Art das Clavier zu start’ might argue that C. P. E. Bach the correct execution in the works of
spielen, Teil 1 (Berlin, 1753). had changed his mind by 1759 and his father. This argument is refuted

Early Music  February 2013  117

by the fact that the context makes it
clear even in the first edition that the
ornament started on the main note. On
p.102 (wrongly printed as p.84) of the
Versuch the mordent is described as the
inversion of the pralltriller. Mordents
always started on the main note.
3  It is ironic that I owe knowledge
of this and a few other examples to
the valuable compendium about
ornamentation written by Isolde
Ahlgrimm, Ornamentik der Musik für
Tasteninstrumente (Graz, 2005), as
it was she who introduced me to the
‘Landowska trill’ in 1950. Apparently
she later had her doubts and compiled
this valuable book, published after her
death.
4  For rare exceptions in the case of
Bach, see my Interpreting Bach at
the keyboard (Oxford and New York,
1995), pp.415–17, and for Mozart,
118  Early Music  February 2013
E. and P. Badura-Skoda, Interpreting
Mozart (New York, 2008 and 2010),
pp.191–5.
5  E. Harich-Schneider, Die Kunst des
Cembalo-Spiels (Kassel, 1939); author’s
translation. Mrs Harich-Schneider, whom
I knew and admired personally, had been
a student in Landowska’s masterclasses in
Saint-Leu-la-Forêt between 1929 and 1935.
She taught the harpsichord at the Berliner
Hochschule from 1932 to 1939 and was
dismissed in 1940 when she refused to
join the Nazi party.
6  Author’s translation.
7  Note that in Bach’s time
accidentals were valid for only one
note and had to be repeated within
the same bar whenever the same note
reappeared.
8  I am well aware that at this place
Bach made a correction in his
autograph, the earlier version being
four semiquavers e—f#—f#—g. This
does not in the least change my
observation. While the fading of the
ink makes the autograph difficult
to decipher here, the copy made by
his son-in-law Johann Christoph
Altnickol (1720–59) (P 402, Berlin)
leaves us in no doubt about the
notation.
9  A. Mendel, The Forkel–Hoffmeister
& Kühnel correspondence: a
document of the early 19th-century
Bach revival, ed. G. Stauffer (New
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York, 1990), p.5ff.
10  J. S. Bach, Goldberg Variations, ed.
R. Kirkpatrick (New York, 1938).
11  See Badura-Skoda, Interpreting
Bach at the keyboard, pp.317, 351–3;
also B. Billeter, Bachs Klavier- und
Orgelmusik (Winterthutr, 2010), p.130.