ornamentation, in music, the embellishment of a melody, either by adding notes or by modifying rhythms. In European music, ornamentation is added to an already complete composition in order to make it more pleasing.
In western Europe, ornamentation varies greatly in different ages and countries. Its traditional vocabulary reflects and often influences musical styles. Some styles of ornamentation result from technical limitations of an instrument; others reflect the desire to add variety to repetitions. Most creatively, ornamentation is linked with improvisation and, therefore, with composition. When a piece is transferred from one medium to another, the instrumental style and ornamentation appropriate to the new medium may alter the character of the music. Until the late 18th century, performers learned to improvise florid embellishment in order to heighten the expressive power of music. But badly executed ornaments cause confusion, and critics complained that ornamentation was sometimes debased by a tasteless display of virtuosity.
Vocal ornamentation in sacred music was opposed by medieval churchmen as detrimental to the purity of the chant. All that is known of early medieval ornamentation is that some notational signs signified ornaments and that the vocal trill was known from at least the 3rd century. The first notated dances, dating from the 13th century, show features of a purely instrumental style of ornamentation. In 14th-century Italian secular music a fundamental technique of ornamentation arose, that of diminution, or division (i.e., dividing the basic melody notes into groups of shorter notes). This technique became codified, and the performer could choose one of several diminution patterns to ornament a phrase. Diminutions were generally cadential (i.e., performed at the end of a section), and the practice became a feature of the 18th-century concerto (see cadenza).
In the 15th century the first theoretical works dealing with ornamentation appeared, followed in the 16th century by many guides to ornamentation, mostly by Italian authors and directed toward amateurs. In these works vocal ornamentation was conceived as abstract musical expression rather than as an expression of literary ideas. It was primarily concerned with reflecting the mood of the text, not with underlining individual words. Therefore, the singer’s approach to diminution was basically similar to the instrumentalist’s.
Early in the 17th century there was a decisive change in vocal and instrumental styles of composition, and two distinct national styles of ornamentation, Italian and French, were founded. Vocal ornamentation was used expressly to heighten the emotional content of the words. To achieve this, a new, emotionally expressive style of melodic writing developed, together with a rhythmically mannered vocabulary of vocal ornamentation. In Italy, although diminution was still practiced, the new style of ornamentation was reserved for solo vocal music.
The principles of diminution were preserved in the 17th-century French style of vocal ornamentation associated with the airs de cour (accompanied solo songs, or airs). They also survived in the varied repeats found in harpsichord and lute music. Early 17th-century French lute music used many small ornaments for purposes of articulation and accentuation, as well as rhythmic modifications of the written notes. These ornaments became important features of harpsichord music, while rhythmic modifications were incorporated in later instrumental styles.
Following the ornamented vocal style of about 1600, the Italian instrumental style remained florid. Elaboration of solo works in the mid-18th century required great skill on the performer’s part, as it was customary for the composer to write only a skeleton of the melody to be filled out by the performer. But the gymnastics practiced by virtuosi of the late 18th and early 19th centuries led ultimately to debasement of the Italian style.
The French and Italian styles of ornamentation remained distinct throughout most of the 18th century. J.S. Bach, not born to either style, could use both at will. In the works of Joseph Haydn and W.A. Mozart, written ornaments were incorporated in a manner that marked the absorption of ornaments into the accepted musical language. In the 19th century many ornaments became an integral part of the musical language without being left to the performer’s discretion, except in Italian opera. Thus, many phrases in works of Frédéric Chopin and Richard Wagner can be traced back to earlier forms of ornamentation.