Ornaments

13. Fill in the gaps

1) Ornaments or embellishments are added notes that are ………………………….….
to carry the overall line ofthe melody or harmony (essential, not essential)
2) Ornaments serve to decorate a melody or harmony, providing added….. .......... (interest and
variety; dullness and bore)
3) Ornaments give the performer the opportunity to……………(wear jewels; make the performance
vivacious and brilliant)
4) A rapid alternation between an indicated note, the note above or below, and the indicated note
againis called ……….…
5) A trill is a rapid ....... ………….between two adjacent notes, usually a semitone or tone apart
6) A short and rapid alternation between an indicated note and the one above is called ………..
7) A mordent can be considered like a crushed …….
8) A single grace note with an oblique stroke through the stem is called ………..
9) The word …….……..comes from the Italian verb acciaccare, meaning "to crush".
10)An added note that is important melodically (unlike an acciaccatura) and suspends the
principal note by a portion of its time-value is called …………
11) A short figure consisting of the note above the one indicated, the note itself, the note below the
oneindicated, and the note itself again is called ……….
12) The exact speed with which ornaments are executed ...... ……, depending on the context. (can
vary, cannot vary)
13) In the Baroque period the amount of ornamentation in a piece of music was often ………….
(very limited;extensive)
14) In Beethoven's work additional ornaments……………………added by the performer (should be;
should not be)

Identify the following statements as true or false

15) The listener can make the melody more complex and interesting adding ornaments
16) In pieces like dances, where the melody is in the top part and the other instruments mostly
playchordal accompaniment, all the embellishment is done by the accompaniment
17) Some historians believe that dance band players got tired of playing the same tune over and
overand started to change it a little each time, improvising embellishments.
18) The number and types of ornaments added by sixteenth-century musicians were always
writtendown in the score.
19) Embellishments are long-duration notes that are added to the main melody of a composition
Interludes

The wedding of Ferdinando de’Medici (the Grand Duke of Tuscany) to Christine of Lorraine
was a spectacular Florentine affair. It took place in 1589,. The wedding was lavish and spared no
expense. This included its principal entertainment: a performance of Girolamo Bargagli’s
comedy La Pellegrina, which is remembered today not for its drama but for the musical interludes
that accompanied it. Those six interludes, better known as intermedi, are composed primarily of
music by famous court composers such as Cristofano Malvezzi and Luca Marenzio.

The intermedio was a musical interlude unique to the Renaissance. It could be placed during feasts,
processions, tournaments, or before, after and in between acts of a play, as is the case for La
Pellegrina. They were the pinnacle of all intermedi with their enormous sets and grand
compositions offering an experience that was nothing short of stunning.
There were other composers who contributed music to the intermedi. They included Giulio
Caccini, Giovanni de’ Bardi, Jacopo Peri, and Emilio de’ Cavalieri—four men who we can consider
have given origin to the birth of the first Opera.
Ferdinando de’ Medici ordered the music of the intermedi to be published shortly after its
premiere. That act preserved it for posterity.

The sixth musical interlude between the acts of Bargagli’s play La Pellegrina, calls for twenty-
four voices and twenty-three instruments, including four lutes, four viols (two of them basses),
four trombones, two cornetts, a cittern, psaltery, mandola, lirone, and a violin.
Assembling a vast force of performers playing instruments with mixed colors achieved a dramatic
finish. This interest in large scale effects was obviously intended as a coup de theatre, and it would
ultimately lend to the modern type orchestra (in which different families of instruments play
together).