The strongest characteristic of the ornamental doubles is the addition of essential and free1 ornaments throughout the piece. This type of typically rich ornamentation became a popular feature of the airs de cour tradition, as mentioned earlier in the chapter about the historical context of doubles. However, airs the cour formed not only the core repertoire for the baroque traverso in its early years but also remained popular almost until the middle of the 18th century, as evidenced by several collections of airs and brunettes.
In total, I examined 25 pieces with ornamental doubles, out of them 21 were composed for a French air or brunette (and one for chansonette) and only 4 were of instrumental origin, specifically the Gavottes in the Premier livre and the Deuxiéme livre de pieces pour la flute traversiere (ca. 1702, 1710) by Michel de La Barre. The other 21 ornamental doubles were found in flute collections by four authors: 14 doubles come from the collection of Airs et brunettes by Jacques-Martin Hotteterre, four doubles come from the collection Brunettes anciènes et modernes by Michel Pignolet de Montéclair, Jean Jacques Rippert provides two more in his collection Brunettes ou petits airs a deux dessus and the last one is included in the Premiére Recueil de pieces by Michel Blavet. The idea of ornamentation as an essential characteristic of this type of doubles is supported among others by the full title of Hotteterre’s collection Airs et brunettes a deux et trois dessus pour les flutes traversieres […], ornez d'agremens par Mr. Hotteterre Ie Romain et recueillis par M. ++++.
In the context of ornamental doubles, it would make no sense, in my opinion, to try to make some kind of categorization of the elements of ornamentation that are used, as I did with the other two types of doubles. In my observations, each of the above-mentioned composers developed his unique style of ornamentation in doubles and, therefore, it was more convenient and beneficial to pay attention to each composer separately. Also, it might feel forced to try to capture the characteristics of the most free and personal of the types of variation of the melody that can sometimes evoke the impression of improvisation.
It is unlikely that we shall ever know whether doubles are primarily the result of careful composition or are improvisations recorded in notation. What evidence there is leans toward a third possibility - some combination of these two, a kind of ideal improvisation [...]. We can safely assume that composers [...] took care with those doubles they presented in printed editions to the public, applying the science of composition in order to polish what may have originated spontaneously in performance.2
Lasocki's analysis of Hotteterre's doubles
The ornamental doubles of J.-M. Hotteterre, contained in the collection of Airs et brunettes, were already thoroughly studied and analysed by David Lasocki. His research was published in 1999 in the article “The Doubles in Jacques Hotteterre’s Airs et brunettes (ca. 1721),” and he also prepared an edition of 18 out of the 21 airs designated “pour la flute seule” at the end of the collection, addressed to recorder players. His motivation towards the research and the edition aptly corresponds to my research, too: “A selection of ornamented airs and brunettes, perhaps in conjunction with a singer, should provide a welcome change from the usual diet of sonatas and suites."3
Lasocki divided Hotteterre’s ornaments into two groups: agréments (essential ornaments, graces) and free ornamentation. Using Hotteterre’s Principes de la flute traversiere (1707) and Pieces pour la flute traversiere (1715) as a source of reference, he introduced and analysed seven of the agréments: Port-de-voix, Port-de-voix-double, Coulement, Coulement double, Accent, Accent double, Turns.4 Regarding the free (or freer, in Lasocki’s term) ornamentation, he identified 12 categories or ornaments: Appoggiaturas, Neighbour Tones and Passing Tones, Chord Tones, Thirds (mostly filled-in), Larger Intervals (filled in with various rhythms and articulation), Escape Tones (echappés), Other Non-chord Tones, Compound Ornaments, Playing with Rhythms, Pauses, Rhythmic Displacement, and Divisions.5
As Lasocki himself admitted, his categorization should not be perceived as definitive. He rather provided one possible way how to look at the complex ornamentation of Hotteterre’s doubles. After playing and studying Hotteterre’s doubles myself, I must concede that I disagree with Lasocki’s categorization and his view on several ornaments. But at the same time, I find it unnecessary to provide another categorization at this moment, since his research together with his edition provide already a lot of valuable information. Hotteterre’s ornamentation is extremely refined and complex and I must agree with Lasocki’s conclusion that some of the most beautiful ornaments are the extraordinary rhythmic displacements or the original notes, which point to the deep insight of the creator and often bring a great expressive effect.
A couple of further remarks are necessary to understand Hotteterre’s doubles:
- As they were intended for a solo flute, in some instances, their ornamentation is affected by the absence of the bass line (as seen in the example below).
- As the ornamentation should reflect the character of the piece, we can understand a lot about the character as well as the tempo of the piece from the ornamentation provided.
- Taking an example from the tradition of airs de cour, the doubles were intended for the second (or following) verses of the song, as can be seen in the majority of Hotteterre’s doubles, too. Thus, the text itself plays an inevitable role in the placement of the ornaments.
My analysis of Montéclair's doubles
M. P. de Montéclair described in the third chapter of the Principes de musique 18 ornaments (agréments) in total: Le Coulé, Le Port de Voix, La Chûte, L’Accent, Le Tremblement, Le Pincé, Le Flatté, Le Balancement, Le Tour de Gosier, Le Passage, La Diminution, La Coulade, Le Trait, Le Son filé et Le Son enflé, Le Son diminué, Le Son glissé, and Le Sanglot.6 In the collection Brunettes anciènes et modernes, Montéclair wrote a double for four pieces: Le beau Berger Tircis, La bergere Celimene, Je sens naitre en mon Coeur, and J’ay passé deux jours sans vous voir. Since every ornamentation of a complete piece always provides a mixture of both the essential and the freer ornamentation, I decided to summarize my analysis of the four pieces in the table below. It contains in total 29 types of ornaments, including the passage and the diminution of certain intervals, mentioned by Montéclair, too, because I found every solution for every situation unique, and it seemed insufficient to me to include all of them under one agrément. Montéclair’s ornamentation, although seemingly less elaborate or rich compared to Hotteterre’s, is, in my opinion, no less effective or refined and, in fact, can sometimes appear even more charming and sophisticated. The elegance of Montéclair’s style is created by the use of many vocal ornaments and even by using sometimes very simple elements, such as reminiscences of the original melody without change, or regularity and symmetricity of some ornaments. It can be observed that sometimes, more can be said with fewer tools or fewer notes.
Comparison of doubles of several authors
Some of the airs and brunettes were so popular that they appeared in more than one of the presented collections. The same applies to doubles: for instance, doubles for L’autre jour ma Cloris were found in the collections by Hotteterre, Blavet and Rippert (Montéclair included the brunette, too, but without its double) and doubles for Mon beau Berger Tircis were included in the collections by Hotteterre, Montéclair and Rippert. Much can be learned from the comparison of the doubles, therefore I prepared two “study editions”, including all of the doubles above the related bass line.7
Examples of my doubles
I have composed five doubles in the ornamental style: Aimable solitude (Montéclair, Brunettes anciènes et modernes, p. 8), D’ou me vien la tristesse (Montéclair, Brunettes anciènes et modernes, p. 25), Mon cœur soupire (Montéclair, Brunettes anciènes et modernes, p. 45), Pour la bergere Lisette (Montéclair, Brunettes anciènes et modernes, p. 18), and Il n’est point d’amour sans peine (Michel Lambert, Airs à une, II. III. et IV. parties avec la basse-continue, p. 180). In the first three examples, I aimed to convey the tender character of the pieces by following Montéclair’s example of implementing mostly vocal ornaments (agréments) that connect all the notes in the melody into one gently flowing stream of music. The tenderness is sometimes evoked by keeping the simplicity and symmetricity of the ornaments, for instance in Mon coeur soupire (see the example below). Sometimes, to preserve the character of the piece, it was also convenient to keep the ornament and shape of the original melody, as in D’ou me vient la tristesse (see the example below). In the double for Ma bergere Lisette, I found inspiration in Montéclair’s double for Je sens naitre en mon cœur and Blavet’s double for L’autre jour ma Cloris for their organization, symmetricity and repetitiveness, to express the lighter character of the piece. Ornaments in bars 4 and 16 were explicitly taken from Je sens naitre en mon Coeur. The double for Il n’est point d’amour sans peine was created after the example of Hotteterre’s double for Ma bergere ne songe que se fair aimer, in which he writes ornaments into two voices with simultaneous movement of the melody and the rhythm (see the example below).
The videos below the musical excerpts illustrate how the doubles can be incorporated into the performance. In both pieces (Aimable solitude and Pour la bergere Lisette), when performed without a singer, I find it suitable and convincing to play the original melody alternately with the double in both parts.
I believe that it is necessary at this point to provide to the reader of this exposition with two editorial remarks on my doubles:
- First, I didn’t notate all the ornaments – battements which often follow the port de voix, or flattements were left to the taste and judgement of the performer.
- Secondly, in some of the rhythmical elements, I used the historical convention of rhythmical writing – for instance, in many cases, the dot after a note does not mean the prolongation of half of the value, but it replaces a ligature (e.g. a dot added to a quarter note, followed by three sixteenth notes, would have a value of a sixteenth note).
