Oakeley, Sir Herbert (Stanley)

(b) Whole tone or semitone.

It is customary to give to the tremblement the name of cadence; there is nevertheless a difference. The cadence is a melodic ending. Now, melodies are related to an air [much in the same manner] as periods and other parts [of speech] are to an address. The endings of these melodies, or sections of which an air is composed, are related [in speech] sometimes to periods, sometimes to commas, sometimes to question marks, etc., according to the different manners in which these melodies conclude. The ending or conclusion of each section is called cadence, of which there are many types … Since the tremblement enters into most of these cadences, the name of cadence has been given to the tremblement.

Rousseau (H1768, p.67) added that ‘Cadence is, in terms of the melody, that beating of the throat that the Italians call trillo, which we also call tremblement, and which is usually done on the penultimate note of a musical phrase, from where, without doubt, it has taken the name cadence’.

The anatomy of a trill is best revealed by Couperin (H1716, p.24), who described three components: the appuy, an upper auxiliary preparation; the battements, the oscillation proper; and the point d'arrêt, a termination on to the main note. This analysis, more properly for the tremblement appuyé, however, belies the dazzling variety in which trills can be executed. Most writers apportioned to the appuy half the value of the trilled note, for notes divisible by two, or a third, for those divisible by three (Bérard, H1755; Blanchet, H1756); naturally, the ornament takes on the suffix appuyé or (in the case of Hotteterre) pleine. Despite Couperin's example confirming an earlier example by d'Anglebert, it would seem that this ornament should have a reiterated upper auxiliary. Saint Lambert (H1702, p.47) not only omitted d'Anglebert's tie but also stated quite specifically that, in performing the tremblement appuyé, the ‘borrowed note’ (i.e. the upper auxiliary) should be heard once ‘before starting the tremblement’. This is not to be confused with Couperin's (H1713) tremblement appuyé et lié, in which the appuy is tied to the preceding note.

It is, however, possible that because of its brevity a note cannot accommodate any dwelling on the auxiliary or its point d'arrêt. In the former case, the suffixes non appuyé, sans appuyer, brisé (Hotteterre), détaché (Couperin) or precipitée (Corrette) apply. Sometimes the term simple is used, though this usually applies to a short, as opposed to longer (double) or long (triple), ornament. Mahaut associated such a non-appoggiatura trill with the Italian style, as opposed to the appuyé trill of the French style; Corrette's (H1758) cadence italienne, however, does have an appuyé as well as a two-note termination, and seems to differ from his double cadence (Hc1740) only in that the latter applies to notes in conjunct ascent. Note that De Machy's tremblement sans appuyer for the viol is actually a two-finger vibrato.

Trills are usually portrayed oscillating for the entire duration of the note, despite Couperin's illustration of a point d'arrêt. This feature could, however, be shortened to allow a brief silence, which Couperin called aspiré. A brief silence can also be found in Hotteterre's (2/1715) double cadence coupée, where it occurs between the termination of a trill and the subsequent note. This is unlike Corrette's (H1758) cadence coupée, whereby the point d'arrêt takes half the value of the ornament and has no ‘cut-off’. Often the tremblement runs into a termination, usually written out in small notes; however, d'Anglebert tended to consider this a compound ornament, tremblement et pincé. Couperin called those with a termination resolving upwards tremblement ouvert and those resolving downwards tremblement fermé. His term for a trill which oscillates across a few bars is tremblement continu.

Jacques de Gallot, in the ‘Méthode’ to his Pièces de luth (c1684) recommended the use of ‘rhythmically even trills as often as possible’, while Le Gallois (H1680, p.77) found that ‘there is nothing which makes playing more lovely … than to trill equally and to sustain the trill’. This does not exclude the shaping of the momentum of the ornament; as Couperin (H1716, pp.23–4) succintly put it, ‘a trill of any considerable duration … should begin more slowly than it ends’.

The appoggiatura. The symbol for the port de voix in keyboard music is almost always an inverse comma preceding the main note. (Chambonnières alone used a cross.) The ornament takes up half the value of the ornamented note. The choice of upper or lower auxiliary is guided by the note preceding the ornamented note. As d'Anglebert (1689) pointed out, the cheute en montant ascends to the main note, while the cheute en descendant approaches the main note from above; the falling motion of the latter explains Gallot's use of the term tombé. Couperin (1713) eschewed the symbol, opting for a small note linked by a square bracket and calling the ornament port de voix coulée, while Rameau's coulez is slurred with an overlegato. Other terms for this ornament include accent plaintiff (Mersenne) and coulement (Hotteterre).

A closely related ornament is Loulié's coulé (H1696, under ‘Coulé’), a vocal inflection from a subsidiary or weak note to a lower and stronger one. It is indicated by a comma between the main notes of varying intervals, and functions mainly as a descending anticipatory appoggiatura linking notes a 3rd apart; its descending counterpart is the port de voix, which Loulié indicated (with an oblique stroke) as playable either before or on the beat.

Rousseau's (H1687, p.90) viol aspiration is played a semitone or a whole tone higher at the very end of a long note; this note must be very short and separated from the main note. A vocal counterpart to this ornament is Bacilly's (H1668, 3/1679, p.189) accent, a passing note nonchalantly inserted between main notes: ‘There is in melody a particular note that is only articulated very lightly by the throat … it is always done on a long syllable, and never on a short one’. This description was echoed for wind instruments by Hotteterre (H1707), who observed that the passing appoggiatura is ‘borrowed' from the end of some notes to give them more expression. The main notes do not have to be conjunct: Corrette (H1758, chap.15) demonstrated how, in bridging a leap, a long note is held until a light upward inflection to the auxiliary precedes the following disjunct main note.