Performing Mozart's Clarinet Concerto With Improvised 18th-Century Embellishments by David Ashton

Performing Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto
with Improvised 18th-Century Embellishments

by
David Ashton Kjar
Presented to the Faculty of the

Department of Music
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Musical Arts degree.
Mason Gross School of the Arts
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
November 5, 2020
2
Table of Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 4
The Mozart Clarinet Concerto ..................................................................................................... 4
Historical Contrasts ..................................................................................................................... 4
The Gamechanger ........................................................................................................................ 8
A Case for Improvised Embellishment in Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto ................................... 9

Contextualizing Improvised Embellishment in Mozart’s Era ..................................................... 9
The State of Improvisation Today ............................................................................................. 10
Improvisation and Musical Expression ..................................................................................... 12
Resistance .................................................................................................................................. 13
Evidence in Support of Improvisation in Mozart’s Music ........................................................ 15
Stadler and Improvisation.......................................................................................................... 18
Learning to Improvise ............................................................................................................... 20
Ornamentation ............................................................................................................................. 28
When to Embellish .................................................................................................................... 28
General Guidance ...................................................................................................................... 33
The Appoggiatura ...................................................................................................................... 33
The Slide .................................................................................................................................... 43
The Termination ........................................................................................................................ 45
The Trill ..................................................................................................................................... 49
The Mordent .............................................................................................................................. 60
The Battement ........................................................................................................................... 63
The Turn .................................................................................................................................... 64
Compound Ornaments ............................................................................................................... 69
Vibrato ....................................................................................................................................... 70
Embellishment Beyond Ornaments ........................................................................................... 73

General Rules Regarding Variation........................................................................................... 74
Variation in Dynamics and Articulation.................................................................................... 75
Tempo Rubato ........................................................................................................................... 77
Rhythmic Alteration .................................................................................................................. 79
Exchanging Notes ...................................................................................................................... 82
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Adding Notes ............................................................................................................................. 83

Florid Embellishment .............................................................................................................. 104
Embellished Fermatas/Eingänge ............................................................................................. 124
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 141

A Worthwhile Endeavor/Synthesis ......................................................................................... 141
Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 143

4
Introduction
The Mozart Clarinet Concerto
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Concerto for Clarinet represents Mozart’s most mature
level of composition and is considered by scholars to be one of his finest works. Indeed, it is his
very last concerto; it bears the Köchel number 622 (the latest being his Requiem in D minor K.
626) and was premiered by Mozart’s friend and collaborator, the clarinetist Anton Stadler, on 16
October 1791 in Prague, only a few months before Mozart’s death on 5 December of the same
year. While this piece is generally well-known, if present-day listeners familiar with standard
recordings of this concerto could travel back in time and hear Stadler perform this piece they
would likely be quite taken aback by one major difference in his approach: the addition of
improvised embellishments. This difference will be the major subject of the present study.
Historical Contrasts
There are many significant ways in which a performance of this piece when it was new
would have differed from a typical modern performance. Beyond the mid-18th-century standard
of hygiene, clothing/wigs, and the non-electric lighting, perhaps the first observations might be
the sound, appearance, and size of the accompanying ensemble. The darker tone of an ensemble
tuned closer to A=430 Hz, the more percussive sound a string section in which some players still
used gut strings and pre-Tourte bows1, the quieter but warmer sound of wooden flutes with
smaller head joint openings and fewer keys requiring the use of cross fingerings, and the rustic
sound of the period bassoons and the natural horns would all be noticeable.
1. Robert Levin, “Performance Practice in the Music of Mozart,” In The Cambridge

Companion to Mozart, ed. Simon P. Keefe (Cambridge University Press, 2003), 239.
5
In Mozart’s time orchestras were typically composed of around thirty musicians or fewer
as opposed to the sixty or so in a modern string section alone. A letter from Leopold Mozart to
his son sent in 1778 speaks of a private orchestra that included eight first violins, six second
violins, two violas, five or six cellos, two or three double basses, two oboes, and two horns.
Salary documents for several concerts in Vienna show similar numbers. A concert in 1781 in
which Mozart had forty violins was a notable an exception to the norm.2
Another difference that modern listeners would notice would be that Stadler would likely
play during the exposition right at the outset of the concerto with the orchestra, generally
doubling the violins, and play during many of the tutti sections throughout the concerto.
Stadler would have more power to influence the tempo and feel of each movement than a
modern soloist, who is largely at the mercy of the conductor.3
A more clarinet-centric difference would be the unfamiliar-looking instrument Stadler
played. The simpler 5-key boxwood clarinets of the time had a softer and more colorful sound
than modern clarinets and had less consistent intonation due to the necessity of using cross
fingerings. However, this concerto was actually written for a new instrument designed and built
by Theodor Lotz especially for Stadler with a similar sound, but having quite a few more keys
and a deeper range. It was called the “basset” clarinet–essentially an A clarinet with an extended
bore and additional keys allowing the performer to play an additional four semi-tones below the
standard low E of the B-flat and A clarinets of Stadler’s time and of the present.4 The name
suggests a hybrid between the clarinet and the then-popular basset horn in F, which was a larger
2. Ibid., 242.
3. Carey Campbell, “Should the soloist play during the tuttis of Mozart’s Clarinet
Concerto?”, Early Music (August 2010): 423.
4. Eric Hoeprich, The Yale Musical Instrument Series: The Clarinet (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2008), 110.
6
and thus lower version of a clarinet, with the extended range down to C (concert F). The original
design of the basset clarinet is not perfectly agreed upon as no original instrument has survived,
but an illustration found on a concert program from a concert on 5 March 1794 in Riga, Latvia
(see figure 1) shows what it may have looked like. Period clarinet makers like Stephen Fox have
made speculative re-creations in boxwood (figure 2), as was customary, and modern clarinet
makers have preserved all the conveniences and sound of a modern clarinet while adding the
additional lower notes (figure 3).
1. Concert Announcement and Program 2, 3. Stephen Fox (left) Basset Clarinet

documenting Anton Stadler’s Performance Re-creation, Buffet Crampon Basset Clarinet
of the Clarinet Concerto K. 622 on 5 March 1794,
(Latvian Fundamental Library, Riga)
Whatever the exact design of the Lotz basset clarinet, it is clear that it allowed Stadler to
play an additional four semitones below E, and the implication, supported by comments from
music critics of the time, is that several passages were originally written differently from the now
well-known version for A clarinet first published by Breitkopf & Hartël in 18015. The original
concerto made full use of this new instrument’s extended low range, and many passages were
5. Hoeprich, The Clarinet,111.

7
altered by an unknown editor to make the concerto playable on a standard A clarinet.
Unfortunately, there are no surviving copies of the autograph score as it was likely lost or
pawned by Stadler himself.6 However, an earlier attempt written in Mozart’s hand of a concerto
for basset clarinet in G survives. The 199 measures of this first effort are nearly identical to the
Allegro of the clarinet concerto, except that it is written a whole step lower until the last 20
measures where Mozart abandons the key of G and switches to A. Unfortunately, these 199
measures do not use the extended low notes of the basset horn, and therefore, modern efforts to
restore the original registration are largely based on guess work.
However, there is one helpful source of information on registration. An anonymous
author pointed out in a review from March of 1802 in AmZ that the Breitkopf & Härtel edition of
K. 622 is significantly different from a copy of the autograph score he claimed to possess. In
addition to mentioning that the autograph had bassoons (missing in the first publication)7, he also
confirmed that the original was written for an A clarinet with an extended low range.
Conveniently, he lists passages that were originally written down the octave: in the Allegro, bars
146, 147, 190-8, 206-9; in the Adagio, bars 45-51, 55; and in the Rondo, bars 61, 62, and 99-
105.8
While it is impossible to determine of all the specifics of the original version with
absolute certainty, a well-informed effort to do so is not without benefit. The task provides a
unique impetus to analyze Mozart’s compositional style and to then make artistic choices as to
the details of melodic shapes and registration. While this specific means of personalizing the
6. Pamela L. Poulin, “The Basset Clarinet of Anton Stadler,” College Music Symposium
22, no. 2 (Fall 1984): 75-76.
7. Hoeprich, The Clarinet,111.
8. Poulin, “The Basset Clarinet,” 75-76.
8
concerto is not the primary focus of this study, flexibility with registration is closely related to
the final and most significant difference between Stadler’s early performances and those of
modern players.
The Gamechanger
The differences mentioned so far in appearance, size, range, and timbre of the clarinet
and orchestra, however interesting and important they may be, are not the focus of this
discussion. The element of this late 18th-century performance that would truly surprise a modern
listener, and especially a clarinetist familiar with the concerto, would be the extensive
embellishments Anton Stadler would most likely have improvised. A typical professional
modern performance of this piece would seem bland and sterile when compared to a skillfully
executed 18th-century performance with added ornaments and other improvised embellishments
and variations. Stadler would most likely have taken extensive liberties to alter what was written
on the page throughout each movement. No performance of the piece would be exactly the
same; rather, Stadler would at times use Mozart’s written notes only as a skeletal frame as he
created a unique rendition to be heard only a single time by those attending the performance. To
some this may seem like a very bold assertion, and others may cry “heresy!” However, the
historical evidence shows that many professional musicians before and after Mozart, Stadler
included, had much in common with skilled jazz musicians who not only read notation, but who
improvise both extensive embellishments to melodies as well as extended solos over established
or improvised chord progressions.
The purpose of this study is: firstly, to make a case supporting this claim that Mozart’s
clarinet concerto was meant to be embellished thoroughly; and secondly, to draw from late 18th-
9
century resources to outline and demonstrate how a clarinetist can learn to actually improvise
appropriate embellishments.
A Case for Improvised Embellishment
in Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto
Contextualizing Improvised Embellishment in Mozart’s Era
If one could travel backwards from the present day, listening to concerts throughout the
history of Western music, they would undoubtedly encounter improvisation playing an
increasing role the further back they traveled. In the Romantic period Liszt, Mendelssohn,
Rubinstein and others improvised, or more properly “extemporized” introductions and links
between keyboard pieces.9 In the same period opera singers embellished arias, as well as
improvised passagework and cadenzas in the music of Verdi.10 In the Classical period one
would not only hear improvised embellishments added to composed pieces in concerts, but also
fully improvised pieces. Famous musicians like Mozart11 and Beethoven12 engaged in
improvisation battles with rival keyboardists.
From the mid-18th century and all the way back through the Baroque period composers
would intentionally leave a great deal of space in their notation for all kinds of embellishment.
Skilled musicians like J.S. Bach and Buxtehude would improvise accompaniment using a figured
9. Frank Sawyer, Extemporization: A Course of Three Lectures (Champaign: Royal

College of Organists, 1902), 7.
10. Alison Latham, Roger Parker, Verdi in Performance (Oxford University Press, 2001),
51.
11. Maynard Solomon, Beethoven (New York: Schirmer Books; London: Prentice Hall
International, 2001), 78-79.
12. Hermann Abert, W. A. Mozart, trans. Stewart Spencer (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2007), 624-25.
10
or unfigured bassline, as well as preludes, free fantasias, toccatas and even fugues.13 Musicians
would use “diminution” techniques to embellish parts within polyphonic music. Beginning in the
17th century the first conservatories in Italy taught “foundling” children music and composition
with pedagogical techniques that often relied on improvisation.14
In the Renaissance singers improvised counterpoint over an established cantus firmus,
instrumentalists improvised melodies over ostinati or a ground bass, and keyboardists
extemporized and improvised free-form pieces.15 Further back, singers in the Medieval period
used similar techniques with a large degree of spontaneity in the style called organum.16 As
modern notation was in its infancy composition and improvisation were somewhat
indistinguishable, and with the limits of human memory, improvisation played a large role.
If one were to continue further back and look beyond the history of western music they
would undoubtedly encounter improvisation playing a significant role throughout the rest of the
world going all the way back to the deepest roots of musical expression in antiquity and pre-
history. In musical cultures past and present, with or without a system of notation, improvisation
and the ability to learn and play by ear are foundational and completely natural. Indeed,
improvisation seems to be tied inextricably to the very roots of music-making.
The State of Improvisation Today
Comparing this rich history of improvisation to the present day reveals a stark contrast.
13. Colin Lawson, Robin Stowell, The Historical Performance of Music: An Introduction
(Cambridge University Press, 1999), 75-82.
14. Robert O. Gjerdingen, Child Composers in the Old Conservatories: How Orphans
Became Elite Musicians (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), Introduction, Kindle.
15. Julie E. Cumming, “Renaissance Improvisation and Musicology,” MTO A Journal of
the Society for Music Theory, no. 2, (June 2013): 3.
16. Imogene Horsley, "Improvisation II: Western Art Music 2: History to 1600". The
New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001).
11
While improvisation is alive and well in smaller circles of organists, early music specialists,
jazz/blues/jam and pop musicians, and in some experimental music groups, as well as in most
non-Western musical forms, the practice, with few exceptions, is largely absent in modern
Western art music and education, and the ability to improvise is rare among conservatory-trained
non-jazz musicians. Today, a performer who improvises in a classical style is rare, but in the
wide context of music history, this musician would be considered simply well-trained, and in this
same context a musician lacking the ability to improvise at all is a divergence from normalcy.
The reasons for this gradual decline in improvisational skill are varied. Blame has been
laid upon composers themselves, the improvement of printing technology17, the recording
industry18, societal shifts19, and the resulting restructuring of music education. While progress
has been made towards reviving improvisation in the past few decades, Robert Levin, renowned
pianist and major contributor to the revival of the improvisational language of Mozart’s time,
wrote an article in 1992 containing a sentiment that still ring true today:
The fact is that all musicians today, regardless of their preference of instrument… are
products of a system of conservatory training that stresses technical security over
imagination, and absolute respect for the sanctity of the printed text over creativity. The
decline in the stringency of music theory requirements in schools throughout the world
has led to a situation in which performers master the syllabic surface of the works they
play without sufficient knowledge of the language that underpins it. No wonder, then,
that it is still relatively rare to hear a performance of Classical music that goes beyond
the printed page; and when it does, the embellishments and cadenzas presented are
usually the product of careful preparation rather than risk-laden spontaneity. How
discouraging it is that the lack of freedom in performances of art music-practiced by
performers with years of training- results in far less communicative power than jazz and
popular music, whose equally dazzling virtuosi are often unable to read music but honor
their instincts and always use their language actively. If visits to concerts often seem
17. Michele Biasutti, “Teaching Improvisation through Processes. Applications in Music

Education and Implications for General Education” Frontiers in Psychology (June 2017): 2.
18. Kenneth Hamilton, After the Golden Age: Romantic Pianism and Modern
Performance (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 101-38.
19. Moore, “The Decline of Improvisation,” 69.
12
indistinguishable from attendance at church, it is because we have prized heritage over

its content.20
Improvisation and Musical Expression
In a later article Levin makes several related points, summarizes the evidence and reason
for improvised embellishments in Mozart’s music, and urges performers to make the effort to use
the available resources to learn the skill:
Everything we know about performance practice in the late eighteenth century suggests
that volatile spontaneity was at the core of expression, with the element of risk at the
forefront. Modern-day performers are urged to adopt this posture, taking the immense
variety of characters mirrored by Mozart’s ever-changing accompaniment figures as a
guide. His spirit will be most eloquently served when the essential unity between his
stage and instrumental works is affirmed.21
The world of classical music has made many advancements, and while these must be
enjoyed and celebrated, the losses must also be considered. The absence of improvisation results
in a less interesting and compelling renditions of music that originally had much more power to
move the listeners. In the following passage from the 1992 article referenced earlier Levin
bemoans the sacrosanct manner in which Mozart’s music is typically performed, and he again
urges his readers to utilize the available resources and learn to improvise embellishments in this
style:
Mozart’s music possessed none of this patina when it was written. His letters reveal a
master showman, poised to delight, astonish, confound and move his audience. Virtually
every listener heard the typical Mozart work in 1780s Vienna for the first time; there was
none of the sense of the classic subsequently ascribed to his music. Nor should we
forget that Mozart’s virtuosity as a pianist was prized above his composing, and his
abilities as an improviser stood above both of these in the public’s esteem. If performers
have been slow to realize that true rhetorical fluency in Mozart’s language cannot be
achieved without mastering its vocabulary and syntax, it is precisely because our current
teaching—and the values of a music industry defined by competitions and recordings—
stifle risk-taking and invention. Yet we are in a better position to define and understand
Mozart’s language than his contemporaries, thanks to the intervening changes of style
20. Levin, “Improvised Embellishments,” 221.

21. Levin, “Performance Practice,” 245.
13
and the distance of time. The existence of cadenzas and embellishments by Mozart
himself, and of contemporary treatises giving exhaustive prescriptions for
embellishments and cadenzas, give us all the information necessary to master his
language.22
Following Levin’s advice, this study will continue by examining and then applying the
18th-century evidence and resources written by Mozart himself, his father Leopold, his
contemporaries, and other performers and pedagogues of the preceding decades in an effort to
guide the daring musician through the process of learning these same skills. However, the
clarinetist embarking on this journey will not likely be met with unanimous enthusiasm along the
way.
Resistance
There are some current clarinet pedagogues who are open-minded towards a very modest
amount of prepared ornamentation, but the idea that modern clarinetists performing Mozart’s
concerto should improvise extensive embellishments is not commonly accepted. There are still
many musicians and well-intentioned teachers under the influence of generations of scholars that
believed the practice of embellishment had mostly died out before Mozart’s time. A prime
example of this outdated thinking can be found in William J. Mitchell’s 1948 English translation
of C.P.E. Bach’s keyboard treatise, where he adds a note negating the very point Bach is trying
to make:
It was customary for the performer in earlier times to add his own embellishments and
elaborations freely. The practice was changing about 1750 to the modern method,
whereby the composer specifies every last detail and the performer, hopefully speaking,
follows orders. Indicative of the widespread nature of the earlier practice is Bach’s
Foreword to Two Trios (Wotquenne No. 161), the first of which is programmatic. He
was anxious to have the first Trio performed as written and in order to attain this end

14
(which would be taken for granted today) wrote: ‘It would be best to play the first Trio
as notated, without the additions of free ornaments.”23
While is true that C.P.E. Bach advocated that composers write out their embellishments to help
amateurs play more tastefully, in practice he certainly believed in adding them. In his own
words:
No one disputes the need for embellishments. This is evident from the great numbers of
them everywhere to be found. They are, in fact indispensable… They connect and
enliven tones and impart stress and accent; they make music pleasing and awaken our
close attention. Expression is heightened by them; let a piece be sad, joyful, or
otherwise, and they will lend a fitting assistance. Embellishments provide opportunities
for fine performance as well as much of its subject matter. They improve mediocre
compositions. Without them the best melody is empty and ineffective, the clearest
content clouded.
He continues now with the assertion that Mitchell seems to latch onto exclusively:
In view of their many commendable services, it is unfortunate that there are also poor
embellishments and that good ones are sometimes used too frequently and ineptly.
Because of this, it has always been better for composers to specify the proper
embellishments unmistakably, instead of leaving their selection to the whims of tasteless
performers.24
Greatly tempering and contextualizing this opinion, C.P.E. Bach says himself right before
Mitchell’s inserted note:
I shall refer my readers to the lessons and hope throughout to remove the false
assumption, occasionally encountered, of the need for profuse keyboard ornamentation.
Nevertheless, those who’re adept at it may combine the more elaborate embellishments
with ours. However, care must be taken to use them sparingly, at the correct places, and
without disturbing the affect of a piece. It is understood, for example that the portrayal
of simplicity or sadness suffers fewer ornaments than other emotions. He who observes
such principles will be judged perfect, for he will know how to pass skillfully from the
singing style to the startling and fiery (in which instruments surpass the voice) and with
his constant changing rouse and hold the lister’s attention. With these ornaments, the
difference between voice and instrument can be unhesitatingly exploited.25
23. Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach, Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments,
trans. William J. Mitchell (New York: Norton & Company, 1948), 80.
24. C.P.E. Bach, Essay, 79.
25. Ibid., 80-81.
15
It is interesting to note the way in which the mid-20th-century editor had to bend the
implications of these passages to make them fit with his understanding of this style. Contrary to
his point, the treatises of the 1750s were written during an era where it was commonly
understood that the performer was expected to personalize and even improvise alterations to the
written music which was often left intentionally bare. The reason why there are relatively few
passages specifically declaring the need to add or improvise embellishments is that there was no
need for such advocacy when these musicians authored their treatises.
In many other important 18th-century treatises on performance–including those of
Joachim Quantz, C.P.E. Bach, Friedrich Agricola, as well as Mozart’s own father Leopold–the
authors caution their readers to be sparing and careful with embellishments. However, this does
not mean that professional performers stopped improvising–on the contrary, it clearly indicates
that it was common for amateurs to attempt embellishments as well.
Evidence in Support of Improvisation in Mozart’s Music
The practice of improvising embellishments did not die out nearly as early as Mitchell
believed. In 1789, when Mozart had likely already began writing his clarinet concerto, Daniel
Gottlieb Türk–keyboardist, composer, pedagogue, and contemporary of Mozart–published his
treatise Klavierschule, in which he writes:
I regard any attempt to prove the necessity of ornamentation at greater length as

superfluous, since the need is so evident that none can fail to recognize it. Especially in
the light of present taste, ornaments have become a very necessary requirement. For one
knows by experience that many excellent compositions lose much and perhaps have only
half the effect when they are played without ornamentation… on the contrary, a very
mediocre work can be extraordinarily improved by well-chosen ornaments.26
26. Daniel Türk, Klavierschule/School of Clavier Playing or Instructions in Playing the

Clavier for Teachers & Students, trans. by Haggh (London: University of Nebraska Press, 1982),
229.
16
Mozart’s own scores are a large source of evidence supporting this practice. Levin
makes the point that in several of Mozart's piano concertos the theme is unadorned at reprises in
the solo instrument part, but it is heavily decorated in the orchestral ritornello that follows. If
interpreted literally, this would contradict the relationship between the virtuosic soloist and the
accompanying or competing orchestra.27
To further illustrate this point, in the autograph of Mozart’s original rondos he often did
not write out the recurrences of the main theme or any of the music that followed it until it was
different from the original passage. Rather, he would leave a blank space in the manuscript with
the remark “da Capo [x] Täkt" (‘x’ representing the number of bars that would be repeated). The
published versions of these pieces would reprint these passages identically, but Mozart
personally provided embellishments for many of his solo keyboard works that were published
during his lifetime or performed by his students. One of many fine examples is the Piano Sonata
in C minor, K. 457, for which two separate sets of embellishments for the return of the second
movement’s principal theme have survived.
Another often overlooked piece of evidence is the abundance of repeat signs around main
themes and secondary themes in sonatas.28 Levin remarks that “observing repeats is as much of
a creative challenge as it is part of the style, for a mere replication of the performance in all
details will tire the listener.” 29 Without elaboration these repeats can seem redundant, serving
only by articulating the form. Performers in the Classical period would occasionally skip repeats
to shorten a piece, but today they are often skipped because modern performers recognize the
awkwardness of extended repeats with no variance, and are either unaware of what to do with
27. Levin, “Improvised Embellishments”, 226-228.

28. Ibid, 228-230.
17
them, or they are unequipped to embellish them. However, repeated sections can articulate form,
maintain interest, and even hold listeners in suspense when a skilled musician trained in this style
plays them with improvised embellishments.
An especially engaging and dramatic part of classical concertos were the improvised
lead-ins/Eingänge (Mozart’s own neologism)30, as well as cadenzas. Mozart was regarded as
one of the greatest improvisers of his age, and he would have improvised the cadenzas and lead-
ins to his concertos. In his vocal and instrumental works he often indicated the Eingänge with
only a fermata on a single tone and left it to the soloist to improvise the connecting line. In
relation to this point Levin points out that “the fact that authentic cadenzas for the violin and
wind concertos do not survive, and that authentic vocal cadenzas to Mozart’s arias are an
exception, attests to the fact that their performers did the same.”31 Levin explains the reason
Mozart valued this freedom in his compositional style (especially when writing for himself). He
writes:
Mozart was above all a dramatist: his performances were crowned by his improvisations
and dependent upon the spontaneous realization of a musical surface he often left
somewhat bare. This allowed him the necessary freedom to slant the characterization of
a given performance in a particular direction.32
In a very compelling argument Levin compares the content of the embellishments Mozart wrote
for his pupils with the published versions of those pieces:
Essential to idiomatic performance of eighteenth-century music is the addition of

decoration to the notated text. This was normally improvised anew at each performance
by professional musicians. Amateurs required assistance in such matters; hence, the
printed editions of Mozart’s piano sonatas contain both more dynamic indications and
more decorations than the autographs. Mozart taught the art of embellishment to his
pupils as shown by his embellishments to the aria ‘Non só droned viene’, K. 294, which
30 . Frederick Neumann, Ornamentation and Improvisation in Mozart (Princeton

University Press, 2019), 264
32. Ibid., 244.
18
were composed for Aloysia Weber, and by an elaborate embellishment of the slow
movement of the Piano Concerto in A major, K. 488, by his pupil Barbara Player (for
whom Mozart wrote the concertos K. 449 and 453). While we may not find everything
in the latter to be congruent with Mozart’s style, it is extremely unlikely that Ployer
would have written demisemiquavers if Mozart himself played only crotchets and
quavers.33
Stadler and Improvisation
At this point in the discussion it is well established that the soloist’s improvisational skills
played an important role in at least the piano concerti and the vocal music of Mozart. The last
question to consider before applying this understanding to the clarinet concerto is whether or not
Mozart left room for and expected improvised embellishments specifically from solo
instrumentalists like Stadler. The evidence seems to confirm that Stadler did indeed have the
ability. He, like many professional instrumentalists of his day, was an able composer as well as
performer. Ten different collections and pieces have survived of which he was the author, as
well as references to five or six more works, now lost, including a concerto. Stadler is also the
earliest known composer to write for unaccompanied clarinet.34 Improvisational ability was a
much more common skill among professional musicians of the mid-18th century than it is now,
especially considering its use as a pedagogical tool. In addition to instrumental technique and
the ability to read notation, students learned counterpoint, harmony, and ornamentation in ways
that incorporated some forms of improvisation. 35 While it has been asserted that the use of
improvisation and composition in basic music pedagogy was at its height in the late 16th century,
33. Ibid., 234.

34. Colin Lawson, Mozart: Clarinet Concerto (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996), 14-24.
35. Johannes Menke, Peter Schubert, Robert Wegman, Improvising Early Music,
Collected Writings of Orpheus Institute Series, Ed. Dirk Moelants (Leuven University Press,
2014), 14-17.
19
it did not generally die out among classical musicians until the mid-19th century. 36 In fact, in
1800 Stadler wrote a 50-page response to questions regarding the establishment of a music
school in Hungary, and what the corresponding structure of an ideal musical education would be
like. In his “Musick Plan” he recommended the “learning of theoretical and practical music,
together with musical composition.”37
Performers like Stadler were expected to at least improvise ornamentation, and as will be
demonstrated further on, Mozart’s clarinet concerto is full of passages that call for such
elaboration. It is true that there are few references to Stadler’s improvisational ability38, and
there are no known explicit references to Stadler altering the concerto in live performance, but
this is likely because the piece was not yet familiar as to allow audiences to hear the differences,
and because clearly this practice of personalized elaboration was commonplace.
Perhaps the best evidence of Stadler’s ability to improvise and Mozart’s expectation that
he do so is that little or nothing extra is written in the earliest scores for the soloist in all the
places where a soloist would typically be expected to embellish or extemporize. This is not the
case with several concertos that Mozart wrote for other musicians in whom he had less
confidence. For example, Mozart’s Flute Concerto No. 1 in G Major K. 313 as well as his Violin
Concerto No. 5 in A Major K. 219 are much more finished than the clarinet concerto, and
include more written embellishment by Mozart as well as variations in the rondos.
36. Robin Moore, “The Decline of Improvisation in Western Art Music: An

Interpretation of Change”, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology, (June 1992): 61.
37. Pamela L. Poulin, “A View of Eighteenth-Century Musical Life and Training: Anton
Stadler’s ‘Musick Plan’”, Music & Letters (May 1990): 217.
38. “The Clarinet (a Brief History)”, Brass on Ivory Music, accessed December 17, 2012,
https://wwww.musicanthology.org.
20
In addition to abundant repeated material, and some “skeletal” notation, there several
blank Eingänge throughout the clarinet concerto–the most obvious one is found in the second
movement right before the recapitulation. In the previous bar the orchestra builds up and then
the soloist is left alone on a high B flat, the minor seventh of the dominant. After this lone
fermata on a dotted half note B flat, the next indicated pitch occurs as the clarinet awkwardly
begins the restatement of the main theme a minor seventh lower on a C. To simply hold this
fermata without extemporizing a melodic line leading down to the C would be considered
extremely unmusical, yet this is all that Mozart wrote according to the earliest scores. Surely
Stadler filled this in with his own improvised line and led the orchestra gracefully into the de
capo. This fermata is replaced in later editions by a line found in measures 49-50 of the
Larghetto from Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet K581, which is conveniently shares the same key, time
signature, and which begins on and leads to the same notes. There are several such openings and
other opportunities that will discussed in great detail in the coming pages of this work.
Before this study shifts to a discussion of the specifics of learning to improvise late 18th-
century embellishments, it is necessary to understand the nature and pedagogy of improvisation
in general.
Learning to Improvise
The very idea of improvisation can be daunting to those with little experience doing so.
Modern classical musicians are mostly accustomed to being told exactly what, how, and when to
play, and the same freedom that thrills jazz musicians and other improvisers can make others
very uncomfortable if not completely terrified. To the inexperienced, being asked to improvise
feels like being dropped off in a foreign country without a translator, and with little or no
knowledge of the native language. It is, therefore, no coincidence that language acquisition
21
serves not only as a useful metaphor, but as a highly accurate model of the process of acquiring
skills in musical improvisation.
There are numerous studies that examine the close relationship between the manner in
which the brain processes both music and language. Modern brain imaging techniques and
improvement of neurophysiological measures have allowed researchers to challenge the notion
from the 1970’s that music and language were processed separately by the creative right
hemisphere of the brain and by the analytic left hemisphere, respectively.39 For example, in
2006 researchers Tallal and Gaab demonstrated that several neural modules are similarly
involved in both spoken language and music, and that there is “a strong relationship between
musical ability (or training) and language and literacy skills.” They also reported that musical
training has “been shown to improve many aspects of auditory processing and to improve
cognitive language and literacy skills, while also leading to earlier maturation of auditory-evoked
responses and to alterations of functional anatomy in brain areas that are used while performing
various auditory tasks.”40 In a 2007 study at Georgetown University researchers confirmed that
language and music are processed by some of the same areas of the brain. Their study looks at
memory centers of the brain and observes that errors in a melody as well as errors in grammar
result in an almost identical reaction in the listener’s brain, thus demonstrating that implicit
knowledge of grammatical structures in language is similar to implicit knowledge of musical
syntax.41 This research strongly supports the idea that music can be learned like a language.
39. Thomas G. Bever, Robert J. Chiarello, “Cerebral Dominance in Musicians and

Nonmusicians,” Science 185, no. 4150 (August 1974): 537-539. (Thomas G. Bever 1974)
40. Paula Tallal, Nadine Gaab, “Dynamic auditory processing, musical experience and
language development,” Trends in Neurosciences 29, no. 7 (July 2006): 382-390.
41. Robbin A. Miranda, Michael T. Ullman, “Double dissociation between rules and
memory in music: An event-related potential study,” Neuroimage 38, no. 2 (November 2007)
331-345.
22
The idea of using language acquisition as the model for the teaching and learning of music is not
new. It has deep roots in music history, and it has been revived somewhat in small camps in the
20th and 21st centuries. The most obvious example of this is in the teaching method of Shinichi
Suzuki who believed that children could learn music in the same way they learn their native
tongue.42 In the following quotation, Robert Levin supports these ideas as they relate
specifically to improvised embellishment:
Embellishment is fundamentally a tactile, physical act that cannot be mastered by

analysis only. Like an apprentice jazz musician, the would-be improviser in the
Classical style must develop superior reflexes and an appropriate vocabulary of melodic
patterns drawn from the models he or she wishes to emulate. The difference between a
performer who prepares embellishments or cadenzas and one who improvises them is
analogous to the difference between the beginning language students who can only
replicate sentences taken from a phrase book, and one who has progressed to the point at
which it is possible to leap into the creative world of defining thoughts within the new
language.43
The body of knowledge regarding the connection between music and language expanded
further when the renown Dr. Aaron Berkowitz––one of the world’s leading voices in the field of
neurology––published The Improvising Mind: Cognition and Creativity in the Musical Moment
in 2010. As is evident by the title, this book explicitly focusses on what is happening in the
human brain during musical improvisation. While the comparison of musical improvisation to
linguistic communication is touched upon throughout the book, chapter 5 is dedicated to “a
constructivist, cognitive-functional, usage-based approach to learning to improvise…drawing on
42. “About the Suzuki Method,” Suzuki Association of the Americas, accessed March 29,
2020, https://suzukiassociation.org/about/suzuki-method/
23
the theoretical framework proposed by [psychologist and linguist] Michael Tomasello for
language acquisition.”44 He justifies this proposition with the following argument:
In many musical cultures, to be a performing musician means to have the ability to

improvise music: the composer and performer are not separate specializations, and much
of musical performance is improvised to varying degrees. While this once was the case
in Western classical music, it is now quite common for highly skilled performers in this
tradition to be incapable of true production, that is, the generation of novel music in the
style(s) in which they perform (composition), let alone spontaneous composition (i.e.,
improvisation). Thus, even some of Western society’s most praised classical musicians
lack true productive competence entirely.
The study of improvisers allows for the examination of individuals who have acquired
both perceptual and productive competence in a musical system. Musicians who have
learned to improvise can therefore be compared to language learners from the
perspectives of both types of competence.45
Berkowitz also writes that, although extensive technical instrumental or vocal training is
prerequisite for improvisation “the generative capacity to invent music likely exists in everyone,
like the analogous aptitude for language.” He elaborates on this further:
During Johann Sebastian Bach’s childhood, he was surrounded by music and musicians,
and one can imagine that he was exposed nearly as much to tonal music as he was to
German. In such an environment, it is not hard to imagine how, given early training on
an instrument, the ability to speak the musical language fluently through improvisation
would develop nearly spontaneously, as does the capacity for spontaneous speech.
It is clear so far that instrumental or vocal technical skill, immersion in music, and the
expectation and frequent opportunity to improvise are key to the development of improvisational
skills. However, before delving into the harmonic language of improvised embellishments in the
late 18th century it should be helpful to look at a few specific language-acquisition-based
strategies for developing these skills.
44. Aaron Berkowitz, The Improvising Mind: Cognition and Creativity in the Musical
Moment (Oxford, 2010), 97.
45. Ibid. 99.
24
Growing up in a suburb of Salt Lake City in family that was active in the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints, I was expected to serve a mission for my church at the age of
nineteen for two years. In August of 2005 after a 12-week course in the Russian language and
ministerial work my plane I arrived in Moscow. Although the twelve week course was in
retrospect useful, I felt completely helpless at first. However, within six months I was
comfortable with the language and was able to communicate enough to do my work. By the end
of my two-year mission I felt more comfortable speaking Russian than English, and many
Russians did not believe me when I told them I was an American and that English was my native
language. Apart from Russian, I have also studied Spanish, French, and Biblical Hebrew all with
lesser results. I learned firsthand about what is and what is not an effective path to linguistic
fluency. Each day while I lived in Russia I would study from Russian grammar books for only a
half hour. At an early crucial stage (about 3 months in) my formal daily language study
consisted of my simply trying to translate an English text into Russian out loud, and then
checking myself with a professional translation already provided. Speaking hardly any English,
and being constantly exposed to native Russian was at first overwhelming, but as I picked up
new vocabulary I did so with context, and gradually I started to understand everyone around me.
I often found myself speaking new phrases I hadn’t practiced, but which I had subliminally
picked up form native speakers. While other missionaries from the United States were also able
to pick up the language well enough to survive and communicate, many were astounded by those
few in our group with a musical background who seemed to be able to speak much more
idiomatically and with much better accents.
While improvising specifically in an 18th century style is still relatively new to me,
musical improvisation is not. Before pursuing my DMA in clarinet performance I received my

25
master’s degree in jazz saxophone performance at Manhattan School of Music, and I currently
live and worked in New York City as a jazz musician. With this in mind, I will proceed to
highlight what I see as the most obvious and helpful strategies from language acquisition as they
apply to learning musical improvisation.
Firstly, one must simulate immersion as much as possible by actively listening to the
style of music they are trying to learn to create. In doing so they are gradually learning musical
vocabulary and phrases in context. Listening primes the ears for improvisation. An intuitive
understanding is slowly constructed which not only guides musical instinct generally, but which
eventually aides in the spontaneous creation of the perfect musical phrases in the moment they
are needed. This same phenomenon happens frequently in spoken languages at every stage of
development with new words and phrases.
Immersion is essential, but alone growth is so slow and unfocused as to be almost
imperceptible. Frustration can easily ensue without recognizable and measurable improvements.
Therefore, coupling this with highly intentional practice focused on smaller cells of information
is very helpful. By comparison, watching films in a foreign language is most helpful when the
student is listening for and recognizing vocabulary that they have been studying in context.
Master jazz improviser and composer David Liebman cautions the would-be improviser to
narrow their focus as they practice, saying that “if one attempts too many diverse elements in the
course of practice, concentration may suffer and time can be wasted.”46
While it is a much more comfortable activity to memorize vocabulary words alone in a
room, nothing will stick very well if it is not used soon after in context. New words stay in the
46. David Liebman, A Chromatic Approach to Jazz Harmony and Melody (Rottenburg:
Advance Music, 1991), 75.
26
mind longer when they are somehow attached to the memory of physical experiences. New
words are easier to memorize in phrases as well. The same is true with learning melodic and
harmonic figures. Learning a type of figuration in all twelve keys with different chord qualities
is only useful if it is practiced within the context of a piece of music, and especially with other
musicians. “On-the-job training” is a great way to think of the kind of practice that truly leads to
mastery and fluency. The same principle is obvious when considering how most people learn
new games of various types. The person who explains the whole game upfront is often wasting
their time without walking the new participants through a practice round.
The last guiding principle from language acquisition pedagogy is the importance of
getting away from the written page. Greater aural awareness and kinesthetic memory are
possible without the distraction of reading. While at a later point in development reading will
not slow down an improviser, it is helpful to develop the abilities with some amount of
separation initially. When practicing a foreign language the words are more likely to be stored in
long term memory if they are regularly accessed from one’s short term memory, and not always
read right off of a written page. Music notation can be helpful, but in the early stages of
development it should be used mostly as a supplement and guide.
As the process of learning to improvise embellishments and cadenzas within this concerto
unfolds, bear in mind that this paper can impede as much as it can shed light on the process. The
ideas presented here are selected from many examples that were developed first by ear-driven
experimentation and application of 18th-century methods of embellishment before they were
written down. The ability to perform this music in an 18th-century improvisatory style will be
the result of many hours of applying jazz-like practice techniques within the classical harmonic
and stylistic language. Liebman again shares valuable insight on this process:
27
One of the goals of practicing is to make a new thought or activity become internalized.
It is attempting to make an unnatural activity to become natural or instinctive. This is
particularly true for the jazz improviser who is expected to spontaneously handle many
mental and musical activities simultaneously. There is no time to think during the heat
of performance; in fact the artist should be free of encumbrances and be in a state of
relaxation so that feelings and reactions to musical as well as emotional stimuli can
occur. In order to bring about this internalization process, the concept of ritual is a
necessary component for the practicing musician. He or she must feel obligated to
practice the material every day. It should be a necessity; just like eating or sleeping….
What sounds stiff and overly intellectualized in the beginning stages will eventually
evolve to more ease and comfort.47
What follows will be a close examination of embellishment techniques as described in
surviving treatises and other relevant documents, as well as their applications to many phrases of
Mozart’s clarinet concerto. In order to develop fluency in improvising these kinds of additions
to this and other similar pieces of music a musician must spend many hours applying this
knowledge in different ways throughout this concerto while avoiding playing the same
embellishments in the same places each time. It may seem tempting to write down and use the
same ornaments, variations, and Eingänge in each performance, but this avoidance of risk robs
the aspiring musician of the opportunity to develop the improvisational skills that not only bring
great personal enjoyment to the act of performance, but which are necessary to effectively revive
the overall energy and impression that Mozart’s clarinet concerto and other similar pieces once
had.
47. Liebman, A Chromatic Approach,75.

28
Ornamentation
When to Embellish
To begin the process of adding ornaments to the concerto the first step is to ascertain
where embellishments might be appropriate generally. Türk writes about this as follows:
The main question: what can actually be varied? is difficult to answer without going into
great detail and can perhaps not be answered to our full satisfaction. It may generally be
observed, however, that only those places should be varied (but only when the
composition is repeated) which would otherwise not be interesting enough and
consequently become tedious. To recognize these places presumes the right feeling
without which every possible rule concerning the appropriate use of extempore
elaborations and variations would probably be fruitless for the most part. I will
nevertheless give a few more detailed suggestions concerning this… For now I shall
only remark that in general it is customary now and then to vary a passage at the
repetition of an Allegro, and the like. However, longer elaborations are most frequently
used in compositions of a gentle, pleasing character in slow tempo, and particularly in an
Adagio.”48
In 1986, at nearly 80 years of age, musicologist Frederick Neumann published
Ornamentation and Improvisation in Mozart. Quoting many treatises, such as that of Türk, his
conservative conclusion is that Mozart tolerated a modest amount of embellishment from soloists
in some of his music. Although he is skeptical of extending this privilege to instrumentalists
besides pianists, he conveniently lists all the places where embellishment might help the music
“be interesting enough” as Türk said. He writes:
In the Italian da capo arias of baroque opera seria it was expected that the singers would
add embellishments to the da capo. Instrumental soloists who repeated a section
48. Türk, Klavierschule, 311.

29
generally did the same. An adagio written in skeletal notation even called for a measure
of added embellishment for the first time, with more florid embroidery in the repeat. In
fast movements that offered little scope for added ornaments the soloist often varied the
melody in the repeat without necessarily adding to the number of pitches, in which case
we have to do not with embellishment but with nonornamental variants… 49
On the subject of when to embellish Levin states that “there are generic places where
embellishment is most likely to be desirable. The most salient of these is the return of the
principal theme in sonatas, and especially rondos.”50 In some of Mozart’s concertos he takes
care to alter the repetitions of the main theme in the rondos for the soloist. For example, this is
true in his Flute Concerto No. 1 in G major K313, and also in his Violin Concerto No. 5 in A
K219. It is possible that there are only the slightest variations in the repeated theme of the
Rondo from the clarinet concerto because Mozart could rely on Stadler to provide the variations
himself.
The Mozart Clarinet Concerto is an excellent vehicle for learning to improvise
ornamentation and other embellishments because it has abundant repeated material in the Allegro
(which is in sonata form), as well as in the Adagio (da capo aria), and of course in the recurring
themes of the Rondo.
A more detailed look at the form of the Allegro brings up a few questions to consider
regarding where to alter the written music with either ornamentation or non-ornamental
variations. The opening Allegro movement begins with an introductory tutti exposition,
followed by the clarinet exposition, the development, and then the recapitulation. Some may
discourage ornamenting the clarinet exposition, and would prefer to wait until that material is
restated later on in the recapitulation. However, there are several things to bear in mind when
49. Frederick Neumann, Ornamentation and Improvisation in Mozart (Princeton

University Press, 1989), 275-277.
30
making this decision: first, when the soloist plays the exposition it is the second time the listener
is hearing much of this material; second, a great deal of this material is already altered by Mozart
(see figure 4). It is obviously not a mere repeat. In measures 61-63 Mozart passes the melody to
the violins, and the clarinet is playing an accompanimental secondary line.
4. Adagio: mm. 5-12, 57-64
This large-scale view of the form is helpful in the other movements as well. The question
of whether material is being heard for the first time or not will inform the decision to embellish
or not in the Adagio and the Rondo. With some variety and development already written into the
repeated material, it will sometimes seem a justifiable choice delay embellishment until
unadorned repeated material presents itself in each movement.
However—bearing in mind the aforementioned tendency for Mozart in some passages
write “skeletal” parts for soloists—it may be that he simply wrote out the embellishments he was
certain he wanted as a minimum, but left room for Stadler to add his own ideas.
In regard to small-scale view of when or when not to embellish Levin advises us that “the
amount of ornamentation required from the performer depends upon the ornateness of the
melody: at times the amount of elaboration in the original text precludes additional
31
ornamentation.”51 Levin also mentions several instances in which embellishment or “filling out”
is appropriate and even necessary. For example, “whenever melodic and rhythmic activity
suddenly slacken without obvious dramatic or expressive motivation” such as during “sequences
in slow movements”, and “passages whose top and bottom notes are delineated without the
necessary connective arpeggios required to give them their intended shape.”52 This last
description applies well to measures 214-218 in the clarinet concerto when there are whole notes
separated by more than an octave (see figure 5). In her 1991 recording of this concerto German
clarinetist Sabine Meyer connected measures 216 and 217, as well 218 and 219 with arpeggios.
Admittedly, it is possible that Mozart intended some of these long notes to be played as written
considering the clarinet’s unique ability to effortlessly go between its lowest and highest notes,
as well as the clarinet’s ability to sustain notes. By leaving some but not all of these whole notes
bare Meyer tastefully displays her virtuosity in both ways.
5. Allegro: mm. 214-218
Another general place Levin mentions is the “piano recitatives in the slow movements of
Mozart’s concertos in which a melody in the piano’s right hand, punctuated by rests, is
accompanied by repeated chords in the strings.” Passages of this kind are also found in the
concertos in D major, K451; in D minor, K466; and in C major, K467. Mozart also mentioned
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid., 230.
32
the “bareness” of such a passage in K451 in a letter to his father dated the 9 June 1784. Mozart’s
sister Nannerl said there was “something missing”, and Mozart promised to “supply the
deficiency as soon as possible and send it with the cadenzas.”53 There are many phrases written
like this in the second movement of the clarinet concerto that could merit embellishments. In
figure 6 the strings are accompanying in essentially the same left-hand pianistic manner
previously described, and this passage is the return to the primary theme after the development,
which makes it an even more appropriate place for embellishment.
6. Adagio: mm. 60-63
With these guidelines in place regarding where it may be appropriate to alter what is
written on the page this study will move on to explore this process and show concrete examples
of these alterations. It is both traditional and pedagogically advantageous to begin by learning to
add “essential ornaments”54 that were still in use at the time before building upon them with
more complex variations and florid embellishments that define the manner of improvised
alteration in late 18th century.
53. Levin, “Improvised Embellishments,” 231-232.

33
General Guidance
Before looking at these ornaments sequentially, it is wise to consider Türk’s guidelines
for their use. His first rule is that “in general, one should not be extravagant in the use of
ornaments especially in compositions of sorrowful, painful, melancholy, serious, innocent, or
naïve character, for often in such cases, an ornament which is used at the wrong time drastically
weakens the desired effect…”. His second rule is, more or less, a specific application of the first.
“One should choose ornaments which are suitable to the character of the composition. In a largo
mesto, for example, many trills, [and] mordents… would not produce the best effect, whereas…
the slide, and appoggiatura would be far more appropriate to the affect…”. His third rule regards
the consideration of tempo. “In an allegro… the trills must be played faster than in an adagio. In
the same manner [the other ornaments] are given a faster or slower execution suitable to the
character of a composition…”. His last rule regards the importance of variety. He writes that
“the use of the various ornaments should be alternated in order to avoid a too great uniformity.”
The Appoggiatura
The first essential ornament that is discussed in most treatises is the appoggiatura
(Vorschlag, literally “before-strike” in German). This is a practical place to start because the
most simple version requires adding only a single note one step away from the printed note.
Also, many other types of embellishments grow out of or are related to appoggiaturas. Türk
gives it an entire chapter “since appoggiaturas are of very differing durations and require a very
detailed notation… in order that the student not receive an all too imperfect knowledge of
them.55 He uses the term “variable appoggiatura” to describe any single ornamental pitch that
precedes its principal note, is played on the beat, significantly alters the length of and is then
55. Ibid., 193.

34
slurred to the note to which it is attached. He subdivides these into the “long” and “short”
variety56. This term, however, excludes figures that are more closely related to the modern grace
note. Türk puts these in two categories: the “invariable appoggiatura” which takes an almost
imperceptible amount of time from the note to which it is attached57, and also the “termination”
which are one or more small notes added that occur quickly before the note to which they are
attached.58
In this concerto Mozart’s composed grace notes and appoggiaturas are often indicated in
the same manner (see figure 7), but they can be distinguished by a discerning ear and taste, as
well as with some useful guidance from Türk’s treatise.
7. a. Allegro: mm. 61-62; b. Allegro: mm. 78-80; c. Rondo: mm. 57-60; d. Rondo: mm. 80-82
The first two examples from the Allegro (figures 7a and 7b ) are very similar to an example
written by Türk using four sixteenths followed by an eighth with an ornamental note attached,
beamed together with two more sixteenth notes. He notates the desired effect as four and four
sixteenth notes, with the first two of the second group tied together, and the last two articulated.59
56. Ibid., 199-200.

58. Ibid., 222.
59. Ibid., 217.
35
In regard to figure 7c Türk’s advice is helpful. He writes that “when the melody ascends one
step and then immediately returns to the preceding tone” then the ornamental note is probably a
grace note or “invariable” or quick appoggiatura.60 In regard to figure 7b he specifies that
staccato markings on principle notes are a good indicator that the attached appoggiatura is to be
played as a grace note.61 Another principle that applies to much of the rondo is that ornamental
notes are usually to be interpreted as grace notes “before triplets and other ternary figures”62.
8. Allegro: mm. 100-104, appoggiaturas marked with asterisk
Another matter to consider is fact that Mozart fully notates many passages that,
harmonically and rhythmically speaking, use fully notated appoggiaturas (see figure 8).
During this period, when composers were transitioning into fully notating ornaments, it is
interesting to ask why they still indicated many of their appoggiaturas with an added ornamental
note (as in figure 7). Neumann proposes several reasons: firstly, that this was often a convenient
way to notate certain rhythms because it allowed composers to avoid using so many ties; also, it
allowed soloists to see the underlying structure and harmony for cases when they expected
embellishment; additionally, appoggiaturas written with an ornamental note had implied a
60. Ibid., 213.

61. Ibid., 212.
62. Ibid., 215.
36
specific articulation and shape for the past several decades at least.63 Joachim Quantz–flute
virtuoso, composer, and pedagogue–wrote in his 1752 treatise that, “appoggiaturas must be
tipped gently with the tongue, allowing them to swell in volume if time permits; the following
notes are slurred a little more softly.”64 This woodwind-specific interpretation is not only helpful
for a clarinetist, but it matches Leopold Mozart’s description from the same decade in which,
after giving specific bowing instructions, he writes:
…the accent must, in the long and longer appoggiatura, always be on the appoggiatura
itself, the softer tone falling on the melody note. But this must be carried out with a
pleasant moderating of the stroke. Also, the accent must have a softer tone preceding it.65
He continues by describing the articulation and shape of a longer appoggiatura:
In the long appoggiatura, of which we speak here, it is quite easy to accent somewhat
gently, letting the tone grow rapidly in strength and arriving at the greatest volume of
tone in the middle of the appoggiatura; but then so diminishing the strength, that finally
the chief note is slurred on to it quite piano.66
Looking back to the discussion of measures 61-62 and 78-80 of the Allegro (figure 7),
Türk asks why a composer might write an appoggiatura on an eighth note followed by two
sixteenths if he wanted four sixteenths, and then he answers his own question saying that “there
is also a marked difference between four sixteenth notes which are written out and these figures
with an appoggiatura… as far as the required execution is concerned.”67 The figure has the
aforementioned two slurred sixteenths followed by two articulated sixteenths.
63. Frederick Neumann, Ornamentation and Improvisation in Mozart (Princeton

University Press, 1989), 6-7.
64. Joachim Quantz, On Playing the Flute, trans, by Edward Reilly (Boston: Northeastern
University Press, 2001), 93.
65. L. Mozart, Violinschule, 171.
66. Ibid.
37
With these clarifications regarding the appropriate interpretation, articulation, and shape
of the written appoggiaturas, the present matter is to add them where they are appropriate but not
indicated in the clarinet concerto. Türk’s advises the following:
Most composers take care of it of their own accord, since they generally add all the
necessary appoggiaturas to their compositions… For this reason, it might not appear
necessary to raise this question. Since it happens every so often, however, that an
appoggiatura is not indicated which even a moderately practiced ear would do without
only reluctantly, I will therefore describe a few situations in which appoggiaturas could
take place…
When a longer note follows after several short notes, and it occurs on an accented beat of
the measure designating a consonant interval, then an appoggiatura may be used before
this long note, namely from above, when the preceding tone is higher (a) [see figure 9],
or from below, when the preceding note is lower (b). In the same manner, as an
appoggiatura takes place between descending thirds (c), before a repeated note (d), with
ascending and descending seconds (e), before the so-called cadential trill (f), before the
last note of a full cadence (g) and a half cadence (h), especially when (in accordance
with the above remark) shorter notes have preceded (i), before fermatas (k) etc. 68
9. Türk, Klavierschule, 196
68. Türk, Klavierschule, 194-195.

38
Türk’s instructions and notated examples are very specific and helpful, but he admits
“there are still many more situations in which appoggiaturas can be used”, and that “a practiced
ear”, “insight into the art of composition”, a “knowledge of thoroughbass and a cultivated taste
are presupposed.” He urges the less experienced to “keep to a simpler form of execution”.69
Example 10 shows two variants of a simple appoggiatura added to measure 88 of the first
movement. Although this is part of the first presentation of the secondary theme and not a
repeated section, it is constructed of repetitive material and justifies subtle embellishment. The
first line represents the original unaltered music from bars 85-88, while the second and third add
the appoggiatura on the first note of measure 88. The added tenuto and dynamic markings are
representative of the articulation and phrasing described by Quantz previously.
10. Allegro: mm. 85-88

39
The first variant follows the older rules as outlined in the treatises of Quantz, C.P.E.
Bach, and Agricola in that the appoggiaturas receive two thirds of the length of dotted rhythms.
Four decades later Türk refers to these “long” appoggiaturas as a “variable appoggiatura” or as a
“suspension”. He also outlines the use of “short” appoggiaturas–those taking less than half of
the rhythmic value to which they are attached. 70 Thus, in the second variant of example 12, a
short appoggiatura is used to prevent undue emphasis of the repeated non-harmonic “G”. Türk
admits that “there are still various appoggiaturas which must be short because of harmonic
reasons even though, according to the rules which have been given, some of them should be
long.”71 There is also substantial evidence that Mozart kept the two-thirds rule only on shorter
note values as pointed out by Frederick Neumann using Mozart’s operatic scores. One of his
many examples (see figure 11) is from an aria in Don Giovanni where an appoggiatura is
indicated on a dotted half note in the vocal part using a small ornamental note; however, the first
violin doubles the melody, but has a fully notated part in which the appoggiatura is a quarter
note–one third the original value of the dotted half note.72
11. Neumann, Ornamentation and Improvisation in Mozart, 17

72. Neumann, Ornamentation and Improvisation, 16-17.
40
Evidence shows that in the late 18th century that composers and performers were more flexible
with this rule, and shorter appoggiaturas are fully justified. Additionally, shortening
appoggiaturas often creates an enjoyable syncopated rhythm which is very appropriate in the
Allegro movement of the clarinet concerto. Interestingly, C.P.E. Bach wrote that “all
syncopations and dissonances can be traced back to [appoggiaturas]. What would harmony be
without these elements?” 73
C.P.E. Bach wrote that lower appoggiaturas often repeat preceding notes, and that “the
ascending variable appoggiatura is difficult to use except when it repeats the preceding tone; but
the descending kind is met in all contexts.”74 In Türk’s treatise this use of lower appoggiaturas is
also demonstrated (see “k” in figure 9). Additionally, 18th-century performers would often add
lower appoggiaturas even if they were not a repeated note “a half step below even [when] foreign
to the key signature” according to Johann Hiller–German composer, conductor, keyboardist,
flutist, and theorist–in his 1780 Treatise on Vocal Performance and Ornamentation. He
continues by saying that “our new virtuosi believe that in this way they can make performances
particularly brilliant” but recommends that these should be used “carefully and sparingly;
otherwise [they] can easily become bizarre and offensive instead of being striking and piquant,
as in modern use.” 75

74. Ibid., 87.
75. Johann Adam Hiller, Treatise on Vocal Performance and Ornamentation, trans. ed.
Suzanne Beicken (Cambridge University Press 2001), 78.
41
The downbeat of measure 94 is a good location to apply this type of appoggiatura (figure 12).
This appoggiatura can be played “short”, as an eighth note, or “long” as notated above with
interested harmonic results. In this cadence there is a German sixth chord resolving to V7 chord,
and the soloist holding out the major 7 and resolving up just in time for the violins to play the
flatted 7 only heightens the extra tension needed to make a phrase end in a half cadence.

42
A useful and closely related essential ornament that Türk includes is the double
appoggiatura (Anschlag, German for “attack” or literally “on-strike”). The function of this
ornament as well as its English term makes it a natural subject with which to proceed. Türk
writes that “the double appoggiatura… usually consists of the appoggiaturas one tone below and
one above the following main note.”76 As with the single appoggiatura, Türk divides this
ornament into two types: the short and the long. The second type has a variation where the first
note is dotted and prolonged. His notated examples include not only the correct timing, but the
implied dynamics of the various applications of this ornament (see figure 13).
13. Türk, Klavierschule, 235-237

43
In figure 14 several variations of the double appoggiatura are applied to the first and
second movements of the clarinet concerto. The rhythms are fully notated for clarification.
14. Allegro: mm. 270-272; Adagio: mm 69-72
The Slide
Another essential ornament that can be used in Mozart’s clarinet concerto is the slide (or
Shleifer in German). This ornament is similar to the double appoggiatura, except that it cannot
contain a skip. Türk defines it as consisting of “two or three stepwise ascending or descending
appoggiaturas which–as their name already implies–are slurred into their main note.” This
terminology is helpful because it is clear that a slide, like the appoggiatura, takes time from the
main note to which it is attached before that note is played. He continues by dividing slides into
“two main classes… namely those which are short and without dot and those which are long and
dotted.”77

44
Figure 15 contains Türk’s notated examples. While they are naturally often used between
intervals of a fourth and fifth, Türk shows several other ways of using the slide in between other
intervals. He recommends that the slow, the double (k) and the dotted slide only be used “in
compositions of an agreeable or tender character in [a] rather slow tempo.”78
78. Ibid., 241.

45
In figure 16 various slides are added in the Allegro and Adagio of the clarinet concerto.
In 16c the variety of added slides gives a semblance of diversity of ornaments, but this passage is
only meant to demonstrate different types of slides, as sliding at every opportunity would not
necessarily be tasteful.
16. a. Allegro: mm. 174-177; b. Adagio: mm. 33-34; c. Adagio mm: 69-74
The Termination
The next essential ornament in our discussion is similar in notation to the appoggiatura in
its singular or double form as well as the slide, but it is interpreted in the opposite way.
Regarding the “termination” (nachschlag, literally “after-strike” in German) Türk writes:
Terminations are certain transitory tones, which… always fall in the duration of the
preceding note, or receive their value from this note. To this extent, they can be
regarded as the opposite of appoggiaturas.79

46
They can be divided into two categories, the first consisting of one added note called
“simple” termination, and the other consisting of two added notes referred to as a “double
termination”.80
Türk warns that terminations can often be confused for appoggiaturas and includes
notated examples of the difference in execution (see figure 17).
Mozart fully notates some terminations in the score of the clarinet concerto presumably
to give variety to repeated material. For example, figure 18 compares the soloist’s opening
statement in the clarinet exposition with the same in the recapitulation.
18. Adagio: mm. 57-60, 249-252
80. Ibid., 224.

47
Türk advises performers to add terminations sparingly, and even more rarely the “simple”
variety consisting of a single added note.81 His description of the function of terminations is
helpful to consider when looking for places to apply this ornament. He writes that “terminations
are chiefly used to give the melody more continuity or to prepare a following tone; they are also
used at the end of a trill. 82 Figure 19 demonstrates the application of the more common double
terminations in the second movement. A performer might be better off playing one or the other
of these terminations, as using the same kind of added ornaments so close together may not be of
the best taste. Economy and variety of ornamentation is just as important to successful
embellishment as is the understanding of the underlying harmony and location of alteration.
19. Adagio: mm. 37-40
81. Ibid., 224.

82. Ibid., 223.
48
The more rare simple termination can be added as an anticipation of the note to which it
leads, as a step above or below the note it leads to, or it can be added “with a skip if the interval
it makes forms part of the chord in use”.83 Hiller says essentially the same thing but adds that
“simple leaping Nachshläge can be made into doubles ones…”84 Figure 20 demonstrates each of
these in turn. Interestingly, Mozart fully notates this anticipatory simple termination at the end
of this phrase, and in several other places within the same movement. This fits with Hiller’s
statement that “Germans and Italians… either generally write out the main note and Nachschläge
(terminations) as one figure or leave it up to the singer’s taste to add freely.”85
20. Adagio: mm. 73-76
83. Ibid., 225.

84. Hiller, Treatise, 81.
49
Terminations are commonly associated with trills insomuch that they usually end with
this ornament in the classical style. According to Türk “a termination may be played, even when
it is not written out...”86 In figure 21 terminations are added to the very few trills that Mozart left
bare. It is likely that they are implied along with a quick upper appoggiatura for each trill. Türk
writes about trills with no terminations in situations when “the duration of a note does not allow
a termination... or when several notes of short duration follow one another in rapid motion”87,
but this probably does not apply to measures 223-224 in the Allegro (figure 21) because the
examples that Türk gives of these short durations are eighth notes in the same tempo. Türk also
refers an ornamental chain of trills that looks very similar to this passage (see figure 25).
21. Allegro: mm. 222-225
The Trill
This discussion naturally leads to the various trills–some of which have been necessarily
mentioned already. Türk defines a trill as a “repeated alternation of two tones at the same speed,
which are in the relationship of a major or a minor second to each other depending on the key
signature or added accidentals.”88 This ornament is ubiquitous in compositions from the
Romantic era to the present, however, in the 18th century there where several variations of trills
that are less common today.

87. Ibid., 250.
88. Ibid., 245.
50
Before getting into the details of the different types there are a few general rules to
mention. “Every common trill is usually begun with the auxiliary note”, or the note above the
“prescribed note” according to Türk. He says that the practice of writing an appoggiatura at the
beginning of a trill “is basically quite superfluous and can serve to make the player uncertain.
For such appoggiaturas cannot and should not receive half the value of the following note, and
the trill would begin on the auxiliary tone without the use of this device.”89 It is possible that it is
for this reason that Mozart does not specify the auxiliary tone at the beginning of his trills (see
figure 21). Also, as was mentioned earlier, most trills end with a termination except for trills on
very short note values.
Regarding the speed of trills Quantz writes that the acoustics of the performance space
must first be considered:
If playing in a large place which reverberates strongly, a somewhat slower shake will be
more effective than a quicker one; for too rapid an alternation of notes is confused
through the reverberation, and this makes the shake indistinct. In a small or tapestried
room, on the other hand, where the listeners are close by, a quicker shake will be better
than a slow one. In addition, you must be able to distinguish the character of each piece
you play, so that you do not confuse those of one sort with those of another, as many do.
In melancholy pieces the shake must be struck more slowly, in gay ones, more quickly.
Slowness or quickness, however, must not be excessive.90
Several decades later Türk writes almost the exact same thing, and adds the following regarding
the range in which the trill is being executed:
Inasmuch as a succession of low tones is not as easily perceived as consisting of

individual tones and of definite pitches, it is necessary to play trills in the lower octaves
slower in relation to the speed at which they are played in the higher octaves.91

90
Quantz, Playing the Flute, 101.
51
It is apparent that in the late 1780’s an accelerating trill was absent or uncommon. More
than 6 decades earlier François Couperin had suggested in L’art de toucher le clavecin that trills
“begin more slowly than they end; but this gradation should be imperceptible”92. The Ribattuta
is the only trill-like ornament still in use at the time of the clarinet concerto that necessarily
accelerates, but it does so with dotted rhythms that gradually even out as the speed increases.
This ornament has to be used very sparingly and usually in extemporized cadences. Türk does
not consider it a trill and includes it in his chapter on miscellaneous and compound ornaments.93
Joachim Quantz wrote in the 1750s that trills are to have a consistent speed. He says “if the
shake is to be genuinely beautiful, it must be played evenly, or at a uniform and moderate speed.
Upon instruments, therefore, the fingers must never be raised higher at one stroke than at
another.”
Türk gives a general idea of the speed of a trill in figure 22. He indicates that example a
is an allegro assai. At b the andante marking indicates that trills can be less rapid in slow
movements.
92. François Couperin, L’art de toucher le clavecin, trans. Halford (Alfred Publishing
Co., 1978), 38.
52
The general rules regarding starting pitch and terminations apply to the “common or
proper” trill of the late 18th century (figure 23). They begin on the auxiliary note, and end in a
termination of two and sometimes one note. Türk specifies that d is played in the same way as c,
but warns that the sign can be easily confused with a mordent. This common trill can be added
in many places to increase the amount of tension, and this is the case with the added trill in figure
24 right before a half cadence in the energetic third movement of the clarinet concerto.
24. Rondo: mm. 242-245
As mentioned previously, trills can be strung together on multiple ascending notes as they
are in figure 25 in a chain of trills (Catena di trilli). Türk mentions that “a series of descending
trills is not as good (b).” These each begin on the auxiliary note and can include the two-note
53
termination in between each trilled quarter note. 94 Adding trills when not indicated to a series of
ascending notes drastically changes the character of the passage, and this must be done with care
and intention. In figure 26 a cateni di trilli is created by trilling an even ascending chromatic
passage in the third movement. This passage is one of the very few that could merit this
treatment, and this because of the half cadence that it concludes in, and the lively character of
this movement.
26. Rondo: mm. 183-186
Türk also writes about “the trill with a prefix from below”. At a in the first line of figure
27 he breaks down the trill into its three basic parts, and b in the same line shows its
“uninterrupted execution”. The following line shows two correct and one incorrect notation for
the trill starting from below. Türk recommends this trill on long notes, after embellished

54
cadences, on fermatas, and between stepwise or repeated longer notes or even for skips.95 The
trill with the prefix from below is not as versatile as the common trill, but it can provide some
pleasant variety.
28. Adagio: mm. 59-61
Figure 28 displays two slightly different applications of the trill with the prefix from
below at the end of the eingang in the second movement (which will be discussed more
thoroughly later on). The termination at the end that leads into the tutti section is notated in
sixteenths rather than thirty-seconds because it is one of the very few places where a termination
can be slower than the preceding trill. In this case a slower termination helps the orchestra and
soloist enter together as the freely extemporized section ends and the time starts again. Türk also
recommends in this case adding another note a step above the final terminating note to give the
orchestra more time.96 This is the only difference in the second example.
95. Ibid., 260.

96. Ibid., 252-253.
55
The “trill with the prefix from above” is related the previous ornament, and is not as the
name might suggest, the same as the common trill already discussed. The first line of figure 29
has Türk’s notation, and the second two lines are his examples of when it can be used. He
recommends it on long notes, specifically for the “penultimate note of a cadence after the skip of
a third (a)… for a descending second (d) or above a repeated note (e).” Letter b is a realization of
a; c is a non-example for notating this ornament.97
In figure 30 the trill with a prefix from above is applied to an embellished series of
fermatas in the Allegro (more on this later on).
30. Allegro: mm. 312-315
97. Ibid., 260.

56
There is another trill that both Hiller and Türk mention, the latter remarking that “it has
become fashionable.” The “penultimate trill” is the blending together of two trills almost
imperceptibly at the close of an extemporized cadence. Figure 31 shows Türk’s notation of this
trill at a, and a variation where the lower note is raised a half step (b) to smooth the transition
into the second and final trill of the cadence.98
32. Adagio: mm. 60 33. Türk, Klavierschule, 253
In figure 32 the “penultimate trill” is used in the Eingang in the 2nd movement. Due to
the difficulty of performing the trills an octave higher there are some modifications made and the
termination leads to a final note that is not trilled. This is the only other case that Türk mentions
when a termination is played slower than the trill (figure 33).99
98. Ibid., 262.

99. Ibid., 253.
57
The last trill to be discussed is the “half” or “short” trill. In figure 34 Türk’s notation
shows that the half trill only starts from above in that it begins with the tied-over previous note
which lies a step above. If it was begun on the primary note with an articulation rather than the
auxiliary note it would be a kind of mordent, and more so because the half trill does not have any
termination notes at the end due to its short duration and function. This trill is traditionally used
in descending stepwise motion as Türk demonstrates in figure 35. In fact, it may be helpful to
think of this as a slightly delayed and unarticulated mordent in a step-wise descending passage.
If applied to quicker even passages the delay is impractical and difficult to perceive, thus
resulting in something like an unarticulated mordent (see figure 37).

58
Türk indicates a few possible departures from this stepwise rule (see figure 36):
…composers at times allow themselves one exception or another in this regard, as in the
examples c, d, and e. The short trill is used especially for quadruplet figures after a skip,
above a note in the middle of a stepwise descending figure (f) and at breaks in the
melodic line (g).100
100. Ibid., 263.

59
Figure 37a and 37b apply the half trill in the traditional way to two different places in the
Adagio of the clarinet concerto with the descending major seconds. Figure 37c employs the half
trill in a less conventional way to mark the repeated pitch in the beginning of measure 102 of the
Allegro. In this last case the half trill only differs from a mordent by lacking the typical accent
and articulation.
37. a. Adagio: mm. 68-69; b. Adagio: mm. 89-91; c. Allegro: mm. 100-102
60
The Mordent
The short trill naturally leads to the topic of the already-mentioned mordents. The word
“mordent” comes from the German word for “bite”, and the French term is pincé or “pinched”.
These words are indicative of the accented quality they give the notes they are attached to as well
as the necessary speed and energy with which they are played. Mozart’s father Leopold writes a
broad definition that includes all the varieties of this ornament in his Violinschule:
Now we come to the Mordent. By mordent is meant the two, three, or more little notes
which quite quickly… grasp at the principal note and vanish at once, so that the principal
note only is heard strongly…101
This general definition of mordents is still applicable decades later. In his treatise Türk
divides mordents into basically three categories: the short (or half) mordent, the long mordent,
and the inverted mordent. He shows the various signs that have been associated with this
ornament and their realizations in figure 38.
Regarding the impression of mordents Quantz says that they “enliven the notes and make
them brilliant.”102 Generally they are attached to notes that need to be accented, but occasionally
they can be used in modified way on unaccented notes. Türk writes that “when a short mordent
comes after a suspension… then it is played softly.”103 His demonstration of this is at “a” in the
second line of figure 38.
In the third and fourth lines of figure 38 are Türk’s demonstrations of the long mordent.
These “can naturally be used only for a somewhat longer tone”, writes Türk. Long mordents are
distinguished from trills in that “the mordent may never, as the trill, take the full value of the

102. Quantz, Playing the Flute, 98.
61
ornamented note. Thus the realization in c is incorrect, and that in d can be permitted only in
compositions of a very fiery character.”104
38. Türk, Klavierschule: 265, 267, 243, 244
Inverted mordents, notated like appoggiaturas (last 3 lines of figure 38), are sometimes
interchangeable with regular mordents according to Hiller105, but according to Türk:
The inverted mordent is customarily used before a repeated notes (a), especially when a
lower note follows (b), with several descending seconds (c), before phrase divisions (d),
after rests (e) , before skips (f) before a single ascending second (g, etc. It must never be
used before a passing note, therefore example h should not be used as a model. 106
104. Ibid., 267.

62
He generally recommends that mordents not be used in compositions of “tender” or
“sorrowful” character.107 Wherever they are used, however, “the mordent and the inverted
mordent must be brought out with the greatest possible speed and clarity”108 according to Hiller.
In figure 39 these various kinds of mordents are applied in all three movements of
Mozart’s clarinet concerto.
39. a. Allegro: mm. 104-107; b. Allegro: mm. 80; c. Adagio: mm. 45-46;
d. Rondo: mm. 187-189; e. Rondo: mm. 99-101
107. Ibid., 244.

63
Regarding the execution of the various mordents Quantz gives specific flute-related
advice that applies well to the clarinet:
On the flute [mordents] must be produced with a simultaneous blow of the finger and
stroke of the tongue, and may be introduced in quick notes as well as slow ones. The
second is more suitable for rather slow notes than for rapid ones; but the
demisemiquavers must still be produced with the greatest speed, and thus the fingers
must not be raised too high.109
The Battement
A logical ornament to proceed with is the battement (French for “pulsation”, or
“beating”). Türk writes that it “has much in common with mordents.” His notated examples
(figure 40) clarify that the similarity is seen specifically between the long mordent and the
battement. He describes the only difference as being that “the mordent begins with the main
note itself; however, the battement always begins with the auxiliary.” 110 L. Mozart warns that
“the battement [and] prolonged mordent must not be mistaken for the tremolo or the trill.” He
defines it as a “prolonged mordent from below, and that always from the half-tone.”111
Quantz groups the battement with several “other little embellishments stemming from the
appoggiaturas, such as the half-shake, the pincé…and the doublé or turn”. He says that all of
109. Ibid.
64
these “are customary in the French style for giving brilliance to a piece.”112 L. Mozart likewise
advises the use of the battement “in lively pieces in place of the appoggiatura and mordent, in
order to perform certain otherwise empty notes with more spirit and very gaily.” He also
cautions violinists that “the battement, however, must not be used too often; nay, very seldom,
and then only for the purpose of variety.”113
Türk indicates that the battement “is more customary on other instruments, for example,
on the violin, flute, etc., than on the keyboard”.114 Figure 41 shows an added battement within a
spirited repeating dotted-quarter-note passage with very wide intervals in the 3rd movement.
41. Rondo: mm. 165-168
The Turn
The last essential ornament in this discussion is the “turn” or “double” (doppelschlag or
“double strike” in German). As Türk indicates in the first line of figure 42 the Turn is indicated
with a common sign and often fully notated. Letters e, f, and g show the realization in various
tempos. He makes it clear that in slower tempos they are not even (e, f), the beginning being
“snapped”, and conversely, at fast tempos they are practically even (g). The second line also
indicates how accidentals are accounted for (h, i, k). The third line of this same figure
demonstrates some of the many places this highly versatile ornament can be used. C.P.E. Bach
112. Quantz, Playing the Flute, 97-98.

65
said of the turns decades earlier that they are “almost too obliging”, and he warns musicians to
avoid using them excessively without rhythmic awareness and “in ignorance of style and
touch.”115 The fourth and fifth lines indicated how the turn can be used in between notes as a
means of travel rather than on them as with the previously discussed terminations. Composers
can indicate this by the placement of the sign in between the notes.116
42. Türk, Klavierschule: 272, 274

66
Figure 43a and 43b add two turns to the first movement of the Mozart’s clarinet concerto.
In 4.a the added turn is right on the primary note to provide contrast in this repeated phrase. In
43b the turn is used between notes as a means of building extra tension before the release into the
cadence, as well as to make a contrast with the clarinet exposition, this measure being in the
recapitulation.
43. a. Allegro: mm. 104-107; b. Allegro: mm 112-115
There are a few further variants of turns that Türk considers to be compound ornaments–
essential ornaments combined together. The first of these is the “quick turn”, which begins on
the same note to which it is attached. “The turn which results from this combination occurs only
in lively passages on staccato notes, or on notes which are at least not slurred, and for this reason
requires great clarity and rapidity…”

67
The first line of figure 44 shows the sign and fully notated version, and in the second and third
lines demonstrate further that the quick turn occurs “only on detached notes (b), at the beginning
of a musical idea (c), after rests (d), and phrase members (e)…” 117
The next applicable compound ornament that Türk includes is a combination of a two-
note slide followed by a turn. This “ascending turn”, as he calls it, can be played short or long
depending on the tempo, and in the long manner the slide can be dotted as before (see figure 45).
Türk recommends the long or dotted ascending turn in “tender passages and the like” and
laments the infrequency of their application saying, “it is regrettable that this very pleasant
ornament is so seldom used.”118
117. Ibid., 276-277.

118. Ibid., 278.
68
The last applicable compound ornament related to the turn is the “trilled turn”. Türk
describes this as “nothing more than a short trill with a termination”. In the first line of figure 46
he shows its common sign and its realization. In the second line are examples of the trilled turn
used in context. Türk writes that it is used mostly in slower tempos on medium note values
descending by seconds, but allows for occasional exceptions.119
These three additional varieties of turns are applied to Mozart’ clarinet concerto in figure 47.
47. a. Allegro: mm. 69-72; b. Adagio: mm. 68-71; c. Adagio: mm. 33-34
119. Ibid., 279-280.

69
Compound Ornaments
In addition to the previously discussed compound turns, there are many other ways of
combining the essential ornaments with tasteful results. To discuss and apply an exhaustive list
of such combinations would take volumes and would diverge from the purpose of this study.
The goal of learning and applying the essential ornaments is to eventually develop a practical,
aural, and tactile understanding of their function insomuch that they live in the ears and fingers
and can be applied, combined, and altered intuitively. In the advanced stages of the
improvisatory process the previously discussed guidelines and mathematics related to harmony,
rhythm, tempo and feel only linger in the background of the mind.
When experienced and informed musicians begin combining the essential ornaments they
inevitably happen upon combinations discovered earlier that bear multiple names from the
various authors who wrote about them at different times. In Türk’s 1789 treatise he does not
attempt an exhaustive list of ornaments. After explaining a few compound turns he writes, “let
this be enough concerning essential ornaments. What I have passed over in silence can be found
in the works of Bach, Tosi, Quantz, etc.…”120 So far this study has explored the ornaments that
are found in Türk’s treatise exclusively, and this because of their relevance to the performance of
Mozart’s music. Interestingly, while looking through other ornaments from previous authors’
treatises it becomes apparent why Türk chose to stop where he did. Several missing ornaments
are not included in name only. Türk’s definitions of various ornaments and the invitation to
combine them makes the discussion of several missing ornaments almost redundant. For
120. Ibid., 286.

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example, the Euberwurf, Rückfall and Abfall121 (“about-throw”, “fall back”, and “drop” in
German), described by Leopold Mozart a few decades earlier can be described by Türk’s broad
definition of terminations in combination with appoggiaturas (see figure 48).
48. Leopold Mozart, Violinschule, 181-183
Vibrato
Vibrato is discussed within the category of miscellaneous ornaments by Türk as well. The
translator keeps the German word for vibrato–“Bebung”. In this case he is referring to the
clavichord’s ability to produce this subtle pitch waver “over long notes with good effect,
particularly in compositions of melancholy character and the like.” In notation he indicates
vibrato with a dotted and slurred line or the word tremolo over a long note as in figure 49 which
shows the desired execution as well.
49. Leopold Mozart, Violinschule, 181-183
121. L. Mozart, Violinschule, 181-183.

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In Mozart’s day vibrato was considered ornamental, and straight tone was the default
manner of singing or playing an instrument. His father Leopold warned against excessive use of
vibrato and outlined his views concerning its proper use:
Performers there are who tremble consistently on each note as if they had the palsy. The
tremolo must only be used at places where nature herself would produce it; namely as if
the note taken were the striking of an open string. For at the close of a piece, or even at
the end of a passage which closes with a long note, the last note would inevitably, if
struck for instance on a pianoforte, continue hum for a considerable time afterwards.
Therefore a closing note or any other sustained note may be decorated with a tremolo.
In addition to this passage, he spends several pages explaining the technique and application. He
compares it to the natural “wave-like undulation” or “after-sound” of a struck bell.122
In further support of this practice within the concerto there exists a letter from W.A.
Mozart to his father in which he mentions wind instruments using vibrato:
The human voice quivers already by itself – but in a way – [and] to such a degree, that it
is beautiful – that is the nature of the voice. One imitates this [effect] not only on the
wind-instruments, but also the violin instruments and even on the clavichord – but if one
exceeds the limits, it ceases to be beautiful – because it is against nature. Then it sounds
to me just like an organ with a bumping bellow.123
While there is no known source that directly speaks of Stadler using vibrato in modern
terminology, historical evidence shows that he likely did. Harald Strebel–Swiss clarinetist,
historian, and Mozart expert–cites a music critic, Johann Friedrich Schinks, who attended a
performance of Mozart’s “Gran Partita”, the Serenade No. 10 K.361/370a for winds, in Vienna in
the Spring of 1784. Apparently he was very impressed with Stadler:
Stadler… you, brave virtuoso! I've never heard anyone play [the clarinet] like you. I
wouldn't have thought that a clarinet could deceive me into thinking I was hearing the
122. Leopold Mozart, A Treatise on the Fundamental Principles of Violin Playing, trans.
Editha Knocker (London: Oxford University Press, 1978), 203.
123. Greta Moens-Haenen, Das Vibrato in der Music des Barock: ein Handbuch zur
Aufführungspraxis für Vokalisten und Instrumentalisten (Akademische Druck- und
Verlagsanstalt, 1988), 23.
72
human voice, but you so successfully imitated it. Your instrument has a tone so soft, so
lovely that no one with a heart can resist it, and for that, dear virtuoso, I thank you!124
Strebel’s insights into the performance practices of the 18th century as they relate to the clarinet
lead him to interpret Schinks’ comparison to the human voice in a manner that would include the
ornamental vibrato that Leopold Mozart described previously:
The enthusiastic commentary on the vocal qualities of Stadler's clarinet playing and its
ability to approximate the human voice makes it easy to see that the artist was a very
theatrical clarinetist! He must have mastered the messa di voce and the differentiated,
rhetorical, “speaking articulation”. It is therefore not surprising that in his MusikPlan for
Count Johann George Festetics of Tolna, which he wrote some 16 years later, he
expressly emphasizes the value of proper vocal training for aspiring musicians. It also
seems Stadler would have used vibrato where he deemed it appropriate. However, he
would not have used this form of expression–as can be heard today in a stereotypical
manner–but rather by stylistic means of an affect, and as an ornament. In contrast to
other artists criticized by him for the exaggerated and obnoxious use of this stylistic
device, Mozart was undoubtedly extremely impressed with his friend Stadler's natural
vocal-like clarinet playing.125
It is unclear which method Stadler might have used to produce vibrato if he did so. The
common modern method of using subtle pulsating pressure from the jaw may not have been the
preferred method of the time. The methods for flute vibrato existing at the time–abdominal,
chest, throat, and finger vibrato–produce a much more subtle pitch variation, if any at all on the
clarinet, than jaw movement. These various methods are worth exploring in place of jaw vibrato.
Quantz describes the use of vibrato in his chapter on playing the Adagio:
“If you must hold a long note for either a whole or a half bar, which the Italians call
messa di voce, you must first tip it gently with the tongue, scarcely exhaling; then you
begin pianissimo, allow the strength of the tone to swell to the middle of the note, and
from there diminish it to the end of the note in the same fashion, making a vibrato with
the finger on the nearest open hole.”126
124. Harald Strebel, Anton Stadler: Wirken und Lebensumfeld des "Mozart-
Klarinettisten": Fakten, Daten und Hypothesen zu seiner Biographie, (Hollitzer
Wissenschaftsverlag, 2017), 1782.
125. Ibid.
126. Quantz, Playing the Flute, 165-166.
73
However the vibrato is made, the overall consensus is that subtle vibrato used sparingly
on long notes, especially in slower tempos, is stylistically appropriate. There should be plenty of
opportunity for ornamental vibrato throughout the Adagio, for example. In figure 50 vibrato is
marked in the manner of Türk by dotted lines under a slur.
50. Adagio: mm. 5-8
This concludes the portion of this study looking at ornamentation as a means of
personalizing or finishing, as it were, Mozart’s clarinet concerto. Much more could be explored
regarding ornamentation, but in the spirit of Türk’s conclusion to this subject, let this suffice for
now. The skills developed while learning, practicing, and applying these essential ornaments
without playing them in the same places each time will help prepare musicians for the further
modes of improvised alteration.
Embellishment Beyond Ornaments
This section will deal with several methods by which 18th-century musicians altered
repeated material without using traditional or essential ornaments. The terms “embellishment”
and “ornament” are often used by others as synonyms, but in this work an ornament is a specific
and concise pre-established device of consistent shape that is used among other methods to
embellish a written melody. Now that the most common relevant essential ornaments have been
covered, what follows in this section are the other means of embellishing the written material.
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For the sake of pedagogy this study will progress from the more simple to the complex means of
variation, and it will conclude with the extemporaneous embellishment of fermatas. At the outset
it is beneficial to consider the purposes of such variation, and the suggested parameters for their
use.
General Rules Regarding Variation
Türk lays out several rules regarding variations that are reminiscent of his rules for
ornamentation:
1. Every variation must be appropriate to the character of the composition… The final
goal of these variations is not in the least to show the facility of the player but to give
more strength and truth to the affect.
2. The variation must be of significance and at least as good as the given melody. If the
opposite is true then it would be better to leave the composition unvaried.
3. Ornaments of the same sort, even if they are ever so beautiful and fitting, should not
be used often. Aside from that it should be understood that the better
embellishments and the more extensive elaborations should be saved for near the end
of a composition. This in order that the attention for the listeners, especially in
longer compositions, is always sustained and, as it were, refreshed.
4. The elaborations must appear to have been achieved with ease rather than with
effort. Therefore, they must be performed by the player with nicety and without
affectation, even in if they have cost him ever so much labor…
5. Those passages which in themselves are already of striking beauty or liveliness, as
well as compositions in which sadness, seriousness, noble simplicity, solemn and
lofty greatness, pride, and the like are predominate characteristics should be spared
from variations and elaborations, or these should be used very sparingly and with
suitable discrimination…
6. In general, the counting must be maintained in the strictest manner even for the most
extensive ornaments…
7. Every variation must be based upon the given harmony…127
Türk’s eighth rule regarding making variations is left out because it regards the
keyboardists ability to alter the bass, which is not relevant to classical instrumental concertos for
the non-keyboardist. Nevertheless, the understanding of harmony required to do so is essential
for a clarinetist engaging in most aspects of embellishment. The rules stated above will be

75
considered as before in the presentation of each embellishment technique as it applies to
Mozart’s clarinet concerto.
Both Türk and Hiller make similar summaries of the modes by which a musician can
make such variations. Türk writes:
Variations are possible in a number of ways. Namely, one adds still more notes to those
given… (this happens most of the time but is not always appropriate), or one changes the
given figures into others which have the same number of tones… Further, the number of
notes is at times reduced... It is also possible to vary by displacing the notes, as when
some are lengthened and others shortened… There are additional ways of varying, for
example, by alternating loud and soft, by slurring, by detaching the notes. By sustaining
them, and the like.128
Hiller adds one important method that Türk leaves out of this section. “In addition… it is
possible to execute tempo rubato, a simple displacement of the tempo, utilizing the original
notes.129
This study will present these methods in order of complexity–from the least amount of
change to the greatest–thus leading naturally to florid embellishment and to the fully improvised
cadences with fermatas and lead-ins/Eingänge.
Variation in Dynamics and Articulation
It appears that Mozart leaves the dynamics of the clarinet part entirely in hands of the
soloist. In the Henle edition, reconstructed from the earliest available scores, there are no
dynamics specified in the clarinet part. The orchestral cues have some dynamics written, but the
soloist is free to choose how loud or soft to play. Mozart is more specific with articulation, but
still leaves much of the clarinet part unmarked once a general style has been established. The
soloist can also choose to change articulations in repeated material. This often goes hand in hand
128. Ibid., 311-312.

76
with dynamics as demonstrated in examples that follow (figures 51-52). This is possibly the one
technique of variation, especially in regard to the change of volume between repeated phrases,
that has endured to the present and which is taught almost universally.
51. Allegro: mm. 198-203
52. Rondo: mm. 226-229
As recommended by Türk, the different iterations of the “A” theme in the rondo can be
played at contrasting dynamics. This has to be done with real intention. A strong forte and an
exaggerated pianissimo played in different iterations of the same theme will stand out to the
listener (see figure 53).
53. Rondo: mm. 247-254; 270-277

77
Tempo Rubato
Another kind of embellishment that does not necessarily add notes is described in another
letter from Mozart to his father Leopold:
Everyone is amazed that I can always keep strict time. What these people cannot grasp
is that in tempo rubato in an Adagio, the left hand should go on playing in strict time.
With them the left hand always follows suit.130
Renown pianist and musicologist Sandra Rosenblum calls this 18th-century practice
“contrametric rubato”, and describes it as “a redistribution of rhythmic values in a solo melody
against an accompaniment that maintained a steady beat in a constant tempo.”131 In a passage
from C.P.E. Bach’s keyboard treatise, translated by Rosenblum, the practice is described in part
as follows:
The tempo rubato also belongs here [in this discussion of rhythmic aspects of
performance]. In its indication the [rhythmic] figures sometimes have more, sometimes
fewer notes than the [usual] division of the measure allows. In this manner one can
distort, so to speak, a part of the measure, a whole measure, or several measures. The
most difficult and most essential thing is this: that all notes of the same value must be
played exactly equally. When the execution is such that one hand appears to play
against the meter while the other strikes all the beats precisely, then one has done
everything that is necessary. Only very seldom are all parts struck simultaneously…
Slow notes, caressing and sad thoughts [melodies] are the best for this… Proper
execution of this tempo requires a great sense of judgment and an especially great
sensitivity. He who has both will not find it difficult to shape his performance with
complete freedom and without the least constraint, and he would be able–if necessary–to
reshape any passage… Singers and instrumentalists, when they are accompanied, can
introduce this tempo much more easily than the keyboard player, particularly if he must
accompany himself…132

131. Sandra R. Rosenblum, Performance Practices in Classic Piano Music: Their
Principles and Applications (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988),
373.
132. Rosenblum, Performance Practices, 375
78
This description makes it clear that this practice sometimes included adding notes to
make an uneven number, and then to fit them in the allotted space by equal distribution. In
Mozart’s description of tempo rubato in his letter to his father he does not clarify whether he is
adding notes. It is possible that he could have applied tempo rubato to unadorned melodies, but
as will be demonstrated later on he was known to add the florid ornamentations that made it easy
to achieve the floating sound of an uneven amount of notes spread out equally over several
steady beats. Since contrametric rubato often goes “hand in hand” with melodic
embellishment133, as Rosenblum says, it will be even more relevant later on in the discussion of
florid embellishments.
However, Rosenblum’s general definition of tempo rubato doesn’t specify that added
notes are always necessary, nor that the “redistribution of rhythmic values” is always played with
perfectly even note values. She quotes a French description of tempo rubato from Louis Adam’s
Méthode de piano du Conservatoire published in 1804.
Without doubt, expression requires that one hold back or hurry certain notes of the
melody… but only in those places where the expression of a languishing melody or the
passion of an agitated melody requires a delay or a more animated movement. In this
case it is the melody that should be altered and the bass ought to mark the time
strictly.134
133. Ibid., 376.

134. Ibid., 381.
79
In the Adagio of Mozart’s clarinet concerto there are several places in the development
section where this is possible. For example, any of the runs in measures 47-54 (see figure 54)
can be delayed slightly and then played with an acceleration that temporarily disconnects from
the steady eighth accompaniment. This subtle floating sensation is pleasantly dramatic as long
as the runs are followed by solid resolutions on the beat.
54. Adagio: mm. 47-54
Rhythmic Alteration
Rhythmic alteration is closely related to the previous method of variation, but it is much
more broadly applicable. Türk writes that “it is also possible to vary by displacing the notes, as
when some are lengthened and others shortened (d).” (See figure 55).

80
Hiller writes about dotting even eighth notes to add variety even before discussing any of
the essential ornaments (see figure 56).135
56. Hiller, Treatise on Vocal Performance and Ornamentation, 73
This method is difficult to apply in the running eighth notes of the brisk Rondo in 6/8 time, but is
very easy to employ in the Allegro and Adagio. In figures 57- 60 variations to the original
melody (shown in the top staff) are made by lengthening and shortening select notes. In figures
57 and 58 lengthening creates syncopation.
57. Allegro: mm. 253-256
58. Allegro: mm. 261-264

81
In figures 59 and 60 the shortening of single notes results in an anticipatory snapping feel.
59. Allegro: mm. 270-272
60. Adagio: mm. 1-4
The necessity of changing rhythms to accommodate other methods of variation is very
evident in examples mostly belonging to descriptions of other methods. For further example of
this see figure 76.

82
Exchanging Notes
The next mode of making variations is that of keeping the same number of notes, but
replacing some written notes with others while retaining the original rhythms. Türk illustrates
this below in figure 61. Often this involves reordering the notes already on the page.
This method is particularly helpful for altering repeated fast material that leaves no room for
ornamentation or added notes. This method is applied below in various repeated phrases in the
first and third movements.
63. Allegro: mm. 172-179

83
64. Rondo: mm. 334-343
Adding Notes
Arguably the most obvious mode of altering the written music is by adding additional
notes to those already notated. This often results in rhythmic adjustments to the printed notes,
but in this method, rhythmic alteration is a minor result of the filling out some of the space left
by the composer. At this stage of embellishment the various methods of ornamentation and
variation can begin to blend together, and when taken to the extreme this evolves into the florid
embellishment that will be covered in the next section. For the present, this exploration will
limit the amount of added notes in order to explore several methods of filling out space without
using large sweeping virtuosic scales patterns.

84
A useful embellishment that is used to fill out dotted rhythms is called the groppo (Italian
for “knot”). It works in ascending or descending dotted lines as L. Mozart demonstrates in his
treatise (figure 65.)136
65. L. Mozart, Violinschule, 211
In figure 66 the groppo replaces several dotted quarter notes shown in the top staff (the
original written line), and in the last measure replaces the stepwise eighth notes as if they had
been dotted. In the second and third staff the consecutive use of the groppo is for the purpose of
demonstration only–a musician should not in practice use so many embellishments, and
especially of the same kind, so close together. This principle applies throughout this study to the
various applied ornaments and other embellishment techniques.
66. Allegro: mm. 172-179

85
While the groppo can be made to work with even stepwise eighth notes (as seen above),
there is another pattern described by L. Mozart for this specific purpose. The “circle” and “the
half-circle” are demonstrated in figure 67.137
67. L. Mozart, Violinschule, 211
Figure 68 applies the circle to the descending scale in the return of the primary theme of the first
movement. In the previously discussed figure 66 a circle is used in the last measure of the third
line as well.
68. Allegro: mm. 248-252

86
There are many more lesser-known ornamentations that are helpful for making variations.
Türk includes some of them in his treatise as a means of approaching a primary tone (see figure
69). He indicates that these are played short, and do not take time from the note to which they
are attached, and in this regard they are essentially longer versions of what Türk calls
terminations or Nachschläge. While these come from his section on miscellaneous ornaments,
they can be very helpful with additive variation.
Türk notates an example of this technique applied to a melodic fragment rather than a
single note in figure 70. In the first measure he adds the third unnamed ornament from the
previous figure (figure 69) before sixteenths “C” and “A”. In the last measure of figure 70 he
uses the last ornament of the first line of figure 69 to approach the “G”. The other added
materials are a turn and arpeggiation.

87
Thus, it is difficult to find isolated examples of the additive technique that do not contain
known ornaments or other techniques of variation. In the treatises of Türk and Hiller this
technique is demonstrated along with other methods of variation in notated embellished adagios
(see figure 91), and thus they contain essential ornaments and more florid-type embellishments
as well.
Adding prefigured ornaments is manageable with guidance, but adding or changing notes
without using proven ornaments can be very daunting without a basic understanding of the
construction of musical lines. The next several paragraphs and figures are intended to fill in
these missing steps in the briefest manner possible.
In 18th century classical music most musical lines can be understood as having an
inherent harmonic progression underlying there structure. This progression is almost always in
agreement with the bass line and accompaniment. A melodic line is in the most basic sense a
series of broken chords with or without added neighboring tones between chord tones. Being
aware of the underlying harmonic progression is the first and most important step in the
construction of any melodic line.

88
Figure 71 contrasts the fully composed beginning of the clarinet exposition in the first
movement with a reduction of the same but with nonharmonic tones removed, and with the
accompaniment reduced to the underlying chords. Comparing the reduction with the original
reveals how non-harmonic tones are used for the purpose of adding dissonance, filling in space,
and for connecting wider intervals. This reduction also shows how Mozart economizes the use
of nonharmonic tones, often simply arpeggiating chords, so that when he does use dissonance it
is more striking and dramatic.
71. Reduction of Clarinet Exposition of the Allegro from Mozart Clarinet Concerto: mm. 57-64
89
To begin the process of composing or improvising musical lines, whether intended as
independent melodies or connective material, one must first know the underlying harmony, and
then distinguish between harmonic and appropriate non-harmonic tones. Figure 72 shows the
harmonic and non-nonharmonic tones embellishing a C major, C minor, and C minor-major
seventh chord. These non-harmonic tones are upper neighbors (usually a scale tone), and lower
neighbors (either a scale tone or a half-step lower) in relation to each harmonic tone. The non-
harmonic tones are shown here as smaller notes, like appoggiaturas. This figure is reminiscent
of the miscellaneous ornaments that Türk presents in figure 69.
72. Harmonic and Non-harmonic Tones

90
Once an improviser or composer is able embellish a chord tone with those surrounding it,
then the next step is to use more than one chord tone with or without embellishments. Figure 73
demonstrates this with two chord tones with various non-harmonic tones. As in the previous
figure, this example presents the non-harmonic tones with smaller noteheads, and the harmonic
tones with normal noteheads.
73. Melody Based Off Two Chord Tones 74. Example of Excessive Non-harmonic Tones
Placed on Strong Beats
Ordinary scales can accomplish this same aim, but if not used skillfully they can end up
emphasizing the non-harmonic tones more than the harmonic tones. With very short durations of
notes in quick runs this doesn’t really matter as much, but when using pitches with longer
durations this can be problematic as demonstrated in figure 74. In this example the overall sound
of the melody is not rooted in the underlying harmony because non-harmonic tones are on all of
the strong beats. While non-harmonic tones on strong beats are permissible as an effect, too
many of them obscure the intended harmony. Using a scale to make a musical line is most
successful when at such times the scale is altered, either by changing direction, or with chromatic
91
notes, to make more harmonic tones align with the stronger beats as in figure 75. This example
has chord tones on all the strong beats for clarity’s sake (meaning 1, 2, 3, 4 in this case as
opposed to the offbeats), but in practice it is acceptable to have some non-harmonic tones on
strong beats as long as there are not so many that it excessively obscures the intended harmony.
75. Scale-based Musical Line with Chromatic Alterations.
76. Melodies and Underlying Harmonic Structures
The scale and the chord-tone based approach can be blended easily, because in essence
they are one and the same. Scales are simply chord tones close together with only one or two
notes in-between them. Figure 76 demonstrates two different elaborations of the same basic
chord-tone-only melody. The sixteenth-note based top line is a further elaboration of the line
below it. In both examples both the chord-tone method and scale approach are used.
Admittedly, these examples are not particularly beautiful and are only intended to clearly
92
demonstrate principals of melodic construction in the late 18th Century. Violating guidelines can
produce very interesting results, but understanding the guidelines is a prerequisite.
This overview of the construction of musical lines is sufficient for the present. In
summary, one must know and then use the harmonic tones, and be sure when adding non-
harmonic tones not to excessively obscure the harmony. These skills are essential for the
understanding and application of all the material that follows.
A good example of a more basic additive embellishment is shown in figure 77 which is a
transcription of the repetitions of the primary theme in Mozart’s Piano Sonata for four hands in F
(K497) as played by Levin and Malcom Bilson. 138 In this example there are several interesting
variations in addition to the added terminations and turns. A technique similar to L. Mozart’s
groppo or circle is used in the third and sixth measure of b, and also on measure 69. Simple
descending eighths are exchanged for sixteenths, but starting on a higher tone so that the final
tone and transition into the next measure are still preserved. In measure 70 a circle is used to
exchange eighths for sixteenths. Another interesting variation technique is in d at measure 65
where thirds are added in between eight notes, and at 66 where a high B flat is placed between
each descending eighth note. In d at measures 67 and 75 the chromatic scale is used to expand
figures as well.

93
77. Sonata for piano, four hands, in F, K497,

ii; decorations to principal theme in Levin's and Bilson's performance:
(a) exposition; (b) repeat of exposition; (c) recapitulation; (d) repeat of recapitulation.
94
In figure 78 these new additive techniques are applied to the recapitulation in the first movement
of the clarinet concerto.
78. Movement 1: mm. 249-252
Another good resource for learning how to vary repeated material is from Mozart
himself. In some of his concerti he personally wrote in variations for the repeated material,
especially in his adagios and rondos. Sometimes the changes are more subtle, as in the rondo for
his bassoon concerto, but others are quite significant as in his third and fifth violin concertos
(K216, K219) as well as his first flute concerto (K313). There are several reasons why in many
of his concertos he does not write in any variations for repeated material. As has been
mentioned, his piano concertos were written for himself initially, and his improvisational skills
did not require him to make such a detailed piano part. In concertos for others sometimes
enough variation was provided by the form and arrangement, or the orchestration of the
accompaniment. Sometimes it seems that he trusted the performer to work out or improvise the
tasteful alterations he did not write.

95
Figures 79 and 80 display the various occurrences of these main themes of the Rondo
movements of the fifth violin and first flute concertos in parallel staves. Mozart uses a
combination of rhythm and note changes. He straightens out dotted figures, he replaces eighths
with triplet eighths–which involves adding and reordering notes–and he also uses the groppo and
circle-like devices to replace eighths with sixteenths.
79. Mozart Violin Concerto No. 5 in A (K219), Rondo

96
80. Mozart Flute Concerto No. 1 in G (K313), Rondo
In the clarinet concerto, Mozart writes almost no alterations in the repetitions of the main
theme of the Rondo. It is highly unlikely that this is because he did not want them altered at all.
Most likely he relied on Stadler to vary them himself.

97
Before considering how exactly Stadler might have done this, consider figure 81 which attempts
to apply Mozart’s own variation techniques from the flute and violin concertos to the Rondo of
the clarinet concerto as if he had written the alterations for Stadler.
81. Rondo: A Sections Rewritten with Mozartian Variation Techniques
There is a useful source for determining the additive techniques that Stadler might have
used himself. Heitere Variationen für Klarinette Solo (Cheerful Variations for Solo Clarinet) is
Stadler’s own book of composed variations on themes. In figure 82 the seven variations of the
first piece are laid out in parallel staves below for easier comparison with the original theme.
This piece is useful for revealing Stadler’s compositional ability and his musical vocabulary, as
98
well as for gauging both his abilities in embellishment and as an improviser. His variations
reveal a strong reliance on arpeggiation of triads and the use of lower chromatic neighbor tones.
This piece also reveals his great technical facility skipping between the high and low registers.
As would be expected, with each new variation the original melody is more obscured, some
important notes remaining, but the underlying harmony remains essentially unchanged
throughout.
82. Anton Stadler, Bald lächeln mir seelige Tage

(“Soon happy days will smile at me")
99
100
101
102
In the following examples of adding notes to repeated material in the concerto (figures
83-87) the compositional style from Stadler’s variations is mimicked.
83. Allegro: mm. 198-202
84. Allegro: mm. 214-218
85. Allegro: mm. 253-256

103
86. Allegro: mm. 261-263
87. Adagio: mm. 60-63
88. Rondo: mm. 77-80
In figure 88 not only are notes added, but the whole passage is placed an octave lower
than it was notated in the Henle edition. Such a registration is not only performable on a basset
clarinet, but it keeps the clarinet from getting buried in the texture of the strings and other winds.
Here, the orchestra is playing the primary material, and the lower registration allows the clarinet
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to be heard clearly even in an accompanying or secondary role. Figure 89 continues with more
Stadler-esque arpeggiation added mostly between notes.
89. Rondo: mm. 334-346
Florid Embellishment
The next type of alteration is a natural outgrowth of the previous, and is essentially taking
the additive method of variation to the extreme by using longer flourishes of additional notes.
This is almost exclusively done in slower tempos that allow the space necessary for such
additions. This highly decorated and luxurious style of embellishment is often referred to as
105
“florid” embellishment. The word is borrowed from the Latin “floridus” which means
“blooming” or “flowered”. The term has been used to describe the organum of Aquitaine from
the 12th century which was often embellished with melismas. It was also used in reference to the
15th-century “musica figurata” of Ockeghem in which the composer created elaborate polyphony
using many equally melismatic lines. The term can sometimes refer to ornamentation and
passagework in general as in the English translation of Tosi’s 1723 “Observations on the Florid
Song”–originally “Opinioni de’ cantori antichi e moderni, o sieno osservazioni sopra il canto
figurato”. 139 However, the more modern understanding of this term is more similar to that of
“fioritura” or “coloratura” which are associated with the lengthy and complex embellishment of
melodic lines as opposed to standardized local ornamental figures as previously discussed.
Grove Music Online outlines the modern understanding of the term ‘florid embellishment’,
saying that it “most often it refers to the profuse style of ornamentation running in rapid figures,
passages or divisions...”140
The subtly negative denotation of this style as “profuse” may be somewhat telling of the
tension between camps regarding the use of florid embellishment. Fortepianist and musicologist
Leonardo Miucci references this and the initial tendency towards disbelief in an article
considering added embellishments in Mozart’s piano concertos. His opening statement is
reminiscent of previous quotations from Levin:
Unfortunately, both performers and publishers seem to be reticent and still deep-seated
on the 20th-century values: the former – with the exception of a few personalities mainly
researching and performing on historical instruments – limit themselves to reproducing
on stage what they see in modern scores (providing them with a historically incorrect
sacredness), while the latter are content with the achievements accomplished by the
139. “Florid”, Grove Music Online, accessed August 2, 2020,

https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/
omo-9781561592630-e-0000009856.
140. Ibid.
106
Urtext editions, whose sterile results, in several cases, should be taken over by a new
approach). In fact, the editorial practices of the Urtexts, along with the often exaggerated
Werktreue of modern performers may represent the least beneficial approach to this
much-loved repertoire; The Literary Gazette in 1825 referred to solo parts in Mozart’s
piano concertos as “barren and deficient… mere skeletons”. No wonder that performers
and publishers alike have been scared, when instead of notes, they found skeletons in the
scores!141
Miucci justifies the extensive elaborations in Hummel’s edition of Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D
minor (K466) by citing, among other evidence, the more recently published embellishments of
Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A major (K488) written by one of his favorite students, Barbara
Ployer.
At first, such embellishments might seem exaggerated, certainly contributing more to the
quantity than the quality aspect of the work. But, a comparison with coeval sources may
explain the historical coherency of this practice: a similar approach, indeed, is suggested
by several treatises (among them the one of Türk), or even by several piano works
conceived by Mozart with publishing aims (as the Piano Sonatas KV 332 and 457 or the
Rondò KV 511). What may be seen as a final proof of the possibilities and models to
complete such a sketchy text, comes from a very important (and still underestimated)
document, whose handwriting had been attributed by Wolfgang Plath to Barbara Ployer,
one of Mozart’s most talented students.
A comparison between the “skeletal” and the elaborately embellished versions of
Hummel’s edition of the Piano Concerto in D minor, the Ployer embellishments of Mozart’s
141. Leonardo Miucci, “Mozart after Mozart: Editorial Lessons in the Process of
Publishing J.N. Hummel’s Arrangements of Mozart’s Piano Concertos”, accessed August 12,
2020, https://www.musicandpractice.org/volume-2/arrangements-of-mozarts-piano-concertos/
107
Piano Concerto in A major, as well as Türk’s own embellished Adagio are shown below in
figures 90, 91, and 92. While these each use some essential ornaments, the style is generally
florid in that the decorations are frequent, complex, abundant in added pitches, often
chromatically, and necessarily rapid. Upon close examination of each of these examples of
florid embellishment it is apparent that the skeletal notes, while often obscured in the flow of
extemporaneous runs, are very rarely left out.
90. J. N. Hummel, Mozart Piano concerto D minor, KV 466, ‘Romanza’, bars 40-51
108
91. B. Ployer, Embellished Version of Mozart Piano Concerto in A Major, KV 488, ‘Adagio’, Bars 22-28.
109

110
111
In Figure 93 Levin provides an example of how a slow movement from Mozart’s piano
concertos might be interpreted.142 His additions, quite florid as well, leave out no original notes.
93. Robert Levin, Mozart Piano Concerto in C, K503, ii, mm. 57-64, with sample embellishment
Before proceeding further with the analysis and application of these florid
embellishments there is need of a more detailed answer to the previous question regarding
Stadler’s improvisational abilities. The abundant evidence already cited demonstrates clearly
that Mozart––one of the best improvisers of his day––was able, as a pianist, to perform from a
very minimal part and fill in the spaces with improvised florid embellishment. However, the
evidence supporting Stadler’s ability as an improviser is much more vague, making it is more
difficult to build a case that he might have improvised or prepared such an abundance of

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embellishments as were added by Mozart in his own piano concertos. However, Stadler’s
surviving compositions can shed some light on his abilities. After mentioning a few surviving
pieces by Stadler, Colin Lawson, renowned clarinetist and historian, writes the following
regarding Stadler’s abilities in comparison to those of Mozart:
Their novelty value and Stadler’s undoubtedly brilliant playing must have made them
excellent concert works in their day; consisting of popular melodies (folk tunes and
operatic airs) interspersed with roulades and arpeggios, they seem a little disappointing
now and in the present musical climate are mainly of historical interest, depending for
their effect on the brilliance of the performer rather than on their musical content. His
other surviving works also lack depth. From all accounts, Stadler was reputed to have a
very good opinion of himself; one wonders whether he realized how much of his
reputation he owed to Mozart.143
Lawson’s statements are a fitting description for the piece previously shown from Stadler’s book
of variations “Heitere Variationen für Klarinette Solo”. While these compositions pale in
comparison with those of Mozart, they still prove that Stadler had a decent ear, a good grasp of
music theory, an understanding of how to add virtuosic embellishments to simple tunes, and
necessarily very good clarinet technique. Mozart’s incredible virtuosity as an improviser in no
way precludes the possibility that he extended similar freedoms to other soloists. As previously
mentioned, he certainly seems to have written the Adagio of the clarinet concerto like a vocal
aria, with repeated melodies in skeletal notation, and it is highly unlikely that an 18th-century
clarinet virtuoso with known compositional ability would not have elaborated upon what was
written. A more realistic question is whether these elaborations would have been florid in the
same manner as Mozart, Hummel, Ployer, or Türk. The clarinet of the late 18th century would
limit the performer in regards to the rapid chromatic scales often found in florid embellishment,
143. Colin Lawson, The Cambridge Companion to the Clarinet (Cambridge University
Press, 1995), 76.
113
but other than this there is no good reason to assume Stadler would shy away from an
opportunity to demonstrate his abilities in service of the desired affect.
Even if Stadler did in fact take a very conservative approach with very little
embellishment, it is still a worthwhile endeavor to apply florid embellishments to the Adagio.
This can still be done somewhat with the limitations of the clarinet of the late 18th century. A
related question to consider is as follows: if Mozart played the modern clarinet, with its greatly
improved chromatic fingering system, how would he embellish this movement?
A comprehensive analysis of the florid embellishments already shown could be the single
subject of a dissertation, and a more general analysis of the techniques will suffice for the
present. The last several examples are embellished in a way that comes across as florid not
because every alteration is a rapid running melismatic figure, but because these types are
occasionally intermingled with other simpler methods of variation and ornamentation.
Therefore, what follows will be a categorization and analysis of only the embellishments most
abundant in added notes from the previous examples from Hummel, Ployer, Türk, and Levin.
Some of the measures shown use different categories or combinations of methods, and therefore
will be cited multiple times.

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Several of the florid-type embellishments are using the same additive techniques and
even essential ornaments previously discussed, but in longer lines with more notes of shorter
durations. In measure 25 of the Ployer (isolated in figure 94), a rapid descending scale is added
starting far above the written tones both before the E’s, and also before the D at the end of the
measure. The E’s are approached in what would be considered a battement in isolation, and the
F sharp is played and then enclosed with its surrounding tones as in Türk’s third miscellaneous
ornament from figure 69. All of these divisible events strung together are heard as one flowing
virtuosic but expressive embellishment.
94. Ployer Embellishments, m. 25 95. Türk Embellished Adagio, m. 2
In the second measure of the Türk example (isolated in figure 95) no new methods are
revealed. The descending scale after the first B flat that begins to fill the space is a prominent
feature of this style of embellishment, and more of these will be shown later. The short trill on E
flat is followed by two more chord tones in place of the eighth-note B flat in the given part, and a
termination is added to the A. There are added chord tones with a termination and turn at the end
of the measure. It is the stringing of all these previous methods together in one continuous flow
that gives it the florid feel.

115
The following excerpts (figures 96-98) are similar to those above in the methods they
use. Ornaments, scales, or arpeggios–sometimes broken–are added before and between written
notes to fill space.
96. Türk Embellished Adagio, mm. 3-4, 6, 9-10

116
97. Levin Sample Embellishment, m. 13

117
98. Hummel Embellishment, mm. 42, 46
An important feature of florid ornamentation–which in the 18th century was much more
easily accomplished on keyboard instruments than the clarinet–is the use of the chromatic scale.
A large portion of the Ployer embellishments are simply made of the chromatic scale (see figure
99). In measure 22 after the first C sharp the melody (also Türk’s third miscellaneous ornament)
is anticipated and then the connection to the high A is made by a connecting chromatic run to an
appoggiatura. In measure 24 the same portion of the melody is replaced by a lower chord tone,
and the same shape is used, but with an even longer run of chromatic notes. The same shape is
repeated on measure 26, and it is possible that in this case Ployer intentionally brings the second
E down an octave to allow a parallelism of the same shape.
99. Ployer Embellishments, mm. 22, 24, 26

118
The next category or method has already been briefly mentioned in the analysis of
Stadler’s variations. The use of chromatic neighbor tones within scales passages and arpeggios
is an important element in creating the surface chromaticism that is so common in music of the
late 18th century. This practice is demonstrated in measure 8 of Türk’s embellished adagio, and
also in measure 15 of Levin’s example (see figures 100-101).
100. Türk Embellished Adagio, m. 8

119
101. Levin Sample Embellishment, m. 15
Figures 100 and 101 also demonstrate snippets of figuration as part of the connective
material. Figuration is defined here simply as melodic filler patterns made of chord tones with
limited added neighbor tones usually played in-between repeating chord tones. To demonstrate
this more clearly, a common type of figuration is shown in figure 102. Each of the sets of eighth
notes is an arpeggiation of the C major triad with a single lower neighbor tone added between
either the repeated 3rd, the 5th, or the root. This same method was also used by Levin in the
second line of figure 93.
102. Basic Figuration Examples of C Major Triad

120
The last method for making florid embellishments is the use of various complex figures
that fill in consecutive intervals of the same rhythmic duration–most often a third. Both Hummel
and Ployer write excellent examples of these as seen below in figures 103 and 104. In the first
case these single connective devices are essentially compound turns, but when played together
they are heard as a single virtuosic event. While the device is similar in the Ployer, this example
more fully marks each written note because of the repeated tone and slight delay of the
connecting material.
103. Hummel Embellishment, m. 50
104. Ployer Embellishments, m. 27

121
Türk gives a brief introduction and warning before the presentation of his embellished
adagio that has already been shown and analyzed. His statement is fitting for what follows:
The following very simple Adagio to which embellishments have been added can serve
to some extent as an example of how to follow the rules which have been given. Not all
of them could be applied here because several pieces of varying character would be
required for this purpose. A keyboard player of refined taste would moreover not heap
so many elaborations on well-written melodies as I have done here for the sake of
illustration.144
In figure 105 embellishments are added to the recapitulation of the Adagio of the clarinet
concerto using the various techniques already discussed. Just as Türk warns, this second staff
has too many embellishments for a single performance. The purpose in writing them is to
extensively demonstrate embellishment in a highly florid manner at every possible juncture.

122
105. Adagio: mm. 60-75

123
124
Embellished Fermatas/Eingänge
The final section of this work now moves to those few instances in Mozart’s Clarinet
Concerto that are fully improvised with little or no underlying melody indicated.
After considering the evidence that Stadler could have improvised cadenzas,
Musicologist Douglas Scharmann concludes that Mozart left no place for him to do so:
The final irony regarding the concerto is its lack of opportunity for cadenzas. One would
assume that Mozart would allow room for these since he had composed the piece not
only for friend but for a virtuoso clarinetist. But we assume that Mozart in all of his
musical wisdom, sensed the completeness of the piece without cadenzas.145
This assertion is technically true, but somewhat misleading. He is right in that there is no
opportunity for a traditional lengthy cadenza–one that begins on the tonic six-four and which
Türk defines as “extempore embellishments which are found before a full close in the main voice
and which conclude immediately before the final tone with a trill.”146 However, in this concerto
Mozart left at least three places where it is appropriate for the soloist to freely improvise
cadenza-like material. As will be seen, in the third instance the addition of a connecting musical
line is undeniably necessary. These three instances have already been used to demonstrate
various ornaments and embellishment techniques, but here the construction of freely improvised
lines will be examined in much greater detail.
In the same chapter on extemporaneous embellishment in which Türk discusses cadenzi–
or “embellished cadences” as he calls them–he also writes about other opportunities for the
soloist to improvise freely when the meter and accompaniment temporarily halt. He sees these
as separate from the more harmonically complex and potentially virtuosic cadenzi that usually
145. Douglas Scharmann, “Introduction” to Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A Major, K.

622 (4. Hal Leonard, 2007), 4.
125
appear at the end of a movement. He distinguishes between these two varieties by referring to
the less complex type simply as “the embellishment of fermatas”. He writes:
Fermatas are either played without extempore elaborations (simple fermatas) or they are
embellished. In the first instance, one must at least observe what has already been said
on the subject. But since fermatas occur now and then for which an appropriate
embellishment would be of good effect, particularly in compositions rich in affects, then
one should observe the following rules for extempore elaborations.
1. Every embellishment must suit the character of the composition. Therefore, it would
be most unsuitable, if in an Adagio of sorrowful or similar character, one would add
on a merry passage to embellish the fermata, etc.
2. The embellishment, to be exact, should be based only on the prescribed harmony…
However, passing tones are an exception to this… One should avoid modulations to
other keys.
3. The embellishment should not be too long; nevertheless, one is not bound as far as
the meter is concerned.147
Türk wrote thirteen example fermatas (see figure 106)–some with alternate
embellishments–to demonstrate the types of fermatas that can be elaborated upon, as well as to
demonstrate the length and content of the embellishment in different tempos and feels. The
durations are only approximations according to Türk who writes that “it is possible now and then
to linger somewhat longer, and in other places, on the contrary, to play a little faster, according
to the demands of the affect.” In the examples he embellishes the appoggiaturas, main notes, or
both. He also writes the following concerning the final pitches:
It is also not absolutely necessary to end the embellishment each time with the given
interval. It is only to be understood that instead, a close must be made upon another tone
belonging to the harmony, as in the second example of b and i.148
147. Ibid., 290-291.

148. Ibid., 293.
126

127
128
129
130
In Mozart’s operatic arias he left many fermatas where the soloists traditionally added
embellishments. Like Türk, Mozart used either one or two fermatas to indicate the opening.149
Figure 107 shows two of the many such examples from Mozart’s 1786 opera “le nozze di
Figaro” (written only three years before his clarinet concerto).
107. Mozart’s le nozze di Figaro, Giunse al fin il momento, Non piü andrai
The manner in which Mozart uses fermatas in his concerti strongly suggests he expected
them to improvise at such junctures as well. Unfortunately, many of these musical opportunities
149. Kathleen Carlton, “Improvised Ornamentation in the Opera Arias of Mozart: A

Singer’s Guide” (PhD diss., University of Oklahoma, 2001), 11.
131
are unnoticed because of a simplified and sanitized faux-Mozart-esque sound that has gradually
been created and then accepted over the last two centuries. This stripped-down and historically-
inaccurate way of performing Mozart’s concerti has survived to the present day because some of
the concertos have parts for the soloist that are much more finished than others–like the
previously-mentioned fifth violin concerto and first flute concerto for example–as Mozart wrote
specifically for the abilities of the soloists who were not always virtuosic improvisers. Also,
where embellished fermatas and cadenzi have not been written by Mozart, other players and
composers have written examples that are now standardized. Admittedly, in many cases, the
bare bones that Mozart wrote, while sometimes unexciting, are still somewhat convincing and
charming even when unadorned, and it has become customary to perform them with little or no
alteration. This last case is particularly true with the clarinet concerto. While fermatas are
embellished in many other Mozart concertos, most are entirely passed over in the clarinet
concerto by the vast majority of clarinetists. There is a total of seven fermatas–two pairs in the
first movement, one in the second, and two short fermatas in places where the clarinet is not
playing in the third movement. The first two pairs are shown below in figure 108.
108. Allegro: mm. 127-129, 315-317
These two pairs of fermatas are very similar to the those in many other Mozart concertos that
traditionally require elaboration. For example, in the 45th measure of Mozart’s fifth violin
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concerto soloists usually elaborate on the fermata. Figure 109 shows this fermata in a modern
edition with a suggested embellishment in an ossia staff above. In addition to the full score, it
also shows the solo line in the original score.
109. Mozart Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major, movement 2: mm. 44-45

133
Figures 110-111 demonstrate the application of Türk’s instructions and examples of embellished
fermaten to these two similar locations in the clarinet concerto.
110. Allegro: mm. 126-129

134
111. Allegro: mm. 314-317

135
As mentioned before, the third place where a fermata should be embellished in the
clarinet concerto is the fermata at measure 59 in the second movement (figure 112).
112. Adagio: mm. 57-60
While the previous two fermatas are somewhat functional when left unembellished, this one
requires some kind of line to make the following note make sense. It is usually performed with
the borrowed musical line from measures 49-60 in the Larghetto of Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet
K581 (figure 113).
113. Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet K581, Larghetto: mm. 48-52
Mozart coined the type of fermata usually used here an eingang (lead-in) because of the
way it guides the orchestra back in without a pause. An eingang typically occurs when there is a
pause on the dominant chord, and frequently precedes an arrival of the main theme or a move to
136
a closely related key. Like regular embellished fermatas, Eingänge should be performed in a
single breath, otherwise their dramatic effect would be greatly diminished. Levin gives further
instruction on the use of Eingänge as follows:
They can employ a motive from the movement or be based upon arpeggios, scales and
scale figures or a combination of these. Apart from their slightly shorter length, vocal
lead-ins differ little in rhythmic and melodic content from vocal cadenzas.150
There are surviving Eingänge that Mozart wrote out for several arias from Zaide, K. 344,
Don Giovanni K. 577, and from Il re pastore K. 208. Figure 114 shows the score of an aria from
the last of these three with nothing but rests and fermatas, as well as the surviving Eingang that
Mozart wrote for it in figure 115.
114. Mozart’s Il re pastore, K208, ‘L’ameró, saró costante’, mm. 82-86
150. Levin, Performance Practice, 237.

137
115. Mozart’s Il re pastore, K208, ‘L’ameró, saró costante’, mm. 85-86
As in the clarinet concerto, Mozart left room for Eingänge in most of his concerti, but
like with the cadenzi and other embellished fermatas, he rarely wrote them out for the performer.
Figure 116 shows an eingang in a close-up of the original score of in his fifth violin concerto, as
well as a traditional eingang in a more modern version. This musical moment leads into another
iteration of the primary theme of the rondo, as is a common use of an eingang.
116. Mozart Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major, movement 3: mm. 58-64
Türk did not distinguish between embellished fermatas with and without pauses. His
instructions and examples regarding construction of embellishments to fermatas as well as the
previously discussed principles of additive embellishment are sufficient to guide the creative
musician in the improvisation of their own eingang. The following examples (figure 117) of
138
Eingänge for the 59th measure of the second movement of the clarinet concerto include Levin’s
suggestion of incorporating themes from the concerto. The first eingang is based off of a
reoccurring melody first heard in measure 17 of the same movement, the second mimics a
running passage in measures 294-296 from the yet-to-be-heard rondo, and the last version
imitates the main theme of the allegro.
117. Adagio: mm. 59-60
In this third embellishment of the fermata at measure 59 a pause is inserted because of the
octave between this last note of the embellishment and the first note of the returning main theme.
The pause in this case removes its leading function, and it is therefore no longer classifiable as an
eingang. In the earliest scores the rhythmic value of the fermata on the high B flat in measure 59
of the second movement is marked as a dotted half note. Taken literally, this leaves no space for
a breath before the return of the primary theme, and implies an eingang rather than an ordinary
embellished fermata followed by a pause. This is not the only way to indicate a lead-in. An
139
eingang is implied in the 5th violin concerto (figure 116) because of the dotted eighth and
sixteenth notes written only for the soloist after the fermata. The dotted half note in the clarinet
concerto is much more ambiguous, and an embellished fermata concluding in a brief pause or
breath is conceivable.
On the other hand, many fermatas with rests following them can and are often made into
eingang. A good example of this is in Mozart’s first flute concerto (figure 118). A popular place
to add an eingang is in the Rondo at measure 164 where there is clearly a rest indicated.
118. Mozart Flute Concerto No. 1, Rondo: mm. 162-167
Figure 119 is a transcription of the simple eingang that Emanuel Pahud plays in this spot
in the concerto in his recording with the Berlin Philharmonic. Türk would likely find fault with
the continuously repeating pattern, but nevertheless Pahud’s eingang is impressive because of its
140
speed and clarity, it provides the needed connection much like the eingang in the Adagio of the
clarinet concerto, and it is far better than nothing.
119. Pahud Eingang for Mozart Flute Concerto No. 1, Rondo: mm. 164-166
It is also possible to make an eingang work in the place of the previously explored
fermata at measure 315 in the first movement. After this fermata the soloist begins the next
section alone, which is the main theme in cannon (see figure 120). However, this is not possible
in the previous fermata at measure 127 of the same movement because in this first occurrence the
orchestra begins the cannon and the clarinet soloist follows. A regular embellished fermata with
a pause following might be preferred by some at measure 315 to avoid obscuring Mozart’s clever
variation in this repeated material, but others might find this second iteration of the cannon even
more witty if the clarinetist seems to sneak in first by leaving out the pause.
120. Allegro: mm. 314-317

141
This discussion regarding the embellishment of fermatas concludes the study of the
means of variation beyond ornaments. If there was a true lengthy traditional cadenza in this
concerto, it would be necessary to consider the means of applying these same skills to a more
complex chord progression (cleverly weaving its way from the tonic six-four to the dominant),
but since there is none, such a study is outside the parameters of this work. However, the reader
interested in this subject can study the construction of cadenzi through analysis of written
cadenzi, and by consulting the same work by Türk that has been referenced extensively, as well
as other similar treatises.
Conclusion
A Worthwhile Endeavor/Synthesis
At the conclusion of this examination of late 18th-century embellishment practices as they
relate to Mozart’s concerto for clarinet it is clear that much has changed in way clarinetists
approach this wonderful piece of music.
The intention of this discussion has not been to diminish the accomplishments and
traditions of modern performers interpreting classical music in an 19th or 20th-century style, nor
has it advocated the abandonment of the modern clarinet when playing music from the classical
era. It must also be acknowledged that trends and developments of the last few centuries have
pushed performers to emphasize other aspects of performance—either maintaining or raising the
standards for intonation, sound production, articulation, and phrasing. While a period instrument
can produce a uniquely beautiful and authentic sounds, evolutions in technology have helped
skilled musicians meet the demands of evolving musical composition. The modern clarinet and
manner of playing has led players to focus on purity and depth of tone, pitch accuracy, phrasing,
142
dynamics, and clarity of articulation, as well as opening up a world of virtuosic possibilities with
a much more functional chromatic key system.
While respectfully acknowledging and embracing the contributions of the great musicians
and educators who have interpreted this music without the application of historical
improvisational and embellishment techniques, the historical evidence has clearly shown that
something significant has been left behind by the vast majority of modern classical musicians.
Metaphorically speaking, if the baby has not yet been thrown out with the bathwater, some
favorite bath toys certainly have been at least taken out of the bath. However, the missing
elements that make playing this music so enjoyable, and which can bring it to life for the
listeners are not gone forever. The effort it takes to learn to personalize or “finish” this
composition as Stadler would have done is well worth it. Sufficient resources are available, and
only practice stands in the way of a clarinetist or any musician who wishes to perform this or
other similar pieces with the same kind of mastery, energy, and spontaneity that Mozart and
many of his peers like Stadler possessed.

143
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Performing Mozart's Clarinet Concerto With Improvised 18th-Century Embellishments by David Ashton

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Performing Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto

with Improvised 18th-Century Embellishments

David Ashton Kjar

Presented to the Faculty of the

A Case for Improvised Embellishment in Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto ................................... 9

Embellishment Beyond Ornaments ........................................................................................... 73

Adding Notes ............................................................................................................................. 83

Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 141

Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 143

The Mozart Clarinet Concerto

1. Robert Levin, “Performance Practice in the Music of Mozart,” In The Cambridge

modern soloist, who is largely at the mercy of the conductor.3

A more clarinet-centric difference would be the unfamiliar-looking instrument Stadler

additional lower notes (figure 3).

1. Concert Announcement and Program 2, 3. Stephen Fox (left) Basset Clarinet

5. Hoeprich, The Clarinet,111.

altered by an unknown editor to make the concerto playable on a standard A clarinet.

restore the original registration are largely based on guess work.

However, there is one helpful source of information on registration. An anonymous

or improvised chord progressions.

A Case for Improvised Embellishment

in Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto

Contextualizing Improvised Embellishment in Mozart’s Era

history of Western music, they would undoubtedly encounter improvisation playing an

improvisation battles with rival keyboardists.

9. Frank Sawyer, Extemporization: A Course of Three Lectures (Champaign: Royal

with pedagogical techniques that often relied on improvisation.14

In the Renaissance singers improvised counterpoint over an established cantus firmus,

instrumentalists improvised melodies over ostinati or a ground bass, and keyboardists

improvisation seems to be tied inextricably to the very roots of music-making.

The State of Improvisation Today

17. Michele Biasutti, “Teaching Improvisation through Processes. Applications in Music

indistinguishable from attendance at church, it is because we have prized heritage over

Improvisation and Musical Expression

the available resources to learn the skill:

20. Levin, “Improvised Embellishments,” 221.

22. Levin, “Improvised Embellishments,” 221.

Mitchell’s inserted note:

In many other important 18th-century treatises on performance–including those of

that it was common for amateurs to attempt embellishments as well.

Evidence in Support of Improvisation in Mozart’s Music

Gottlieb Türk–keyboardist, composer, pedagogue, and contemporary of Mozart–published his

treatise Klavierschule, in which he writes:

I regard any attempt to prove the necessity of ornamentation at greater length as

26. Daniel Türk, Klavierschule/School of Clavier Playing or Instructions in Playing the

accompanying or competing orchestra.27

movement’s principal theme have survived.

27. Levin, “Improvised Embellishments”, 226-228.

plays them with improvised embellishments.

lead-ins/Eingänge (Mozart’s own neologism)30, as well as cadenzas. Mozart was regarded as

for his pupils with the published versions of those pieces:

Essential to idiomatic performance of eighteenth-century music is the addition of

30 . Frederick Neumann, Ornamentation and Improvisation in Mozart (Princeton

Stadler and Improvisation

33. Ibid., 234.

together with musical composition.”37

and because clearly this practice of personalized elaboration was commonplace.

include more written embellishment by Mozart as well as variations in the rondos.

36. Robin Moore, “The Decline of Improvisation in Western Art Music: An

century embellishments, it is necessary to understand the nature and pedagogy of improvisation

skills in musical improvisation.

improvement of neurophysiological measures have allowed researchers to challenge the notion

knowledge of grammatical structures in language is similar to implicit knowledge of musical