Lesson 48: Baroque Ornamentation Practice — Port de Voix, Coulé, Mordent, Turn

Add a port de voix (rising appoggiatura) and a coulé (falling appoggiatura) at the moments the melodic line invites.
Place a mordent or a turn at a cadence without disrupting the underlying pulse.

For the Baroque player, the ornaments are not decoration. They are the punctuation of the line.

The Baroque treatises — Quantz on flute, Hotteterre on recorder — describe a small family of small ornaments that a competent player added without being asked. Four are enough to start with: the port de voix (a leading-tone appoggiatura from below), the coulé (a falling appoggiatura from above), the mordent (a brief dip to the lower neighbour and back), and the turn (a four-note circling figure around the written note). Each has a defined shape and a defined home: a port de voix loves a rising step at a cadence; a turn loves a half-note suspended in the middle of a phrase. Learn them in isolation; then put them back where they belong.

Port de voix — leaning up from below

A port de voix takes a small note from the step below the written note, lightly tongued, and resolves onto the written note on the beat. It is the rising counterpart to the appoggiatura you met in Lesson 26. Use it whenever a melody steps up onto a strong beat — especially the leading tone resolving to the tonic.

The lower neighbour leans up into the written note. Light tongue on the small note; full weight on the resolution.

Coulé — sliding down from above

The coulé is the descending mirror of the port de voix: an upper neighbour leans down into the written note. It softens a descending phrase, suggesting a sigh.

Each pair of eighths is the upper neighbour leaning down to the written note. Stay light; the resolution carries the weight.

Mordent — a brief dip below

The mordent is three notes in the time of one: written note, lower neighbour, written note. Played as fast as cleanly possible, it puts a small accent on the written note without obscuring it. Use it at the start of a sustained note, not on every passing eighth.

The written note is the half note A; the mordent ornaments its attack — A-G-A as fast as possible, then sustain the A.

Turn — circling the note

The turn is four notes: upper neighbour, written note, lower neighbour, written note. It wraps the written note in a tight curl. The turn lives at the end of a sustained note (as a release into the next), not at the attack.

The half-note A is held, then ornamented with a turn that lands on the next note. Four small notes in the time of one beat.

Play: a plain Telemann phrase, ornamented

Here is a four-bar phrase in the manner of Telemann, written plain. Play it twice through: the first time as written; the second time adding ornaments wherever the line invites them. The marked-in version is one possible reading — there are others.

Port de voix into the C in bar 1; mordent on the D in bar 2; turn around the A in bar 4.

Now play these

Telemann: Six Sonatas, TWV 40:103 (complete): The full Largo–Vivace–Adagio–Allegro sequence. Mark up your own ornament choices in the slow movements before playing.
Handel: Sonata in C major, HWV 365 (Larghetto): A sparse Larghetto whose plain notes are an invitation to ornament. Add one port de voix and one mordent per phrase.
Loeillet: Sonata in D minor, Op. 1 No. 1: French-influenced English Baroque. The cadences want turns; the rising lines want ports de voix.

When you can mark up an unornamented Baroque slow movement, choose two ornaments per phrase, and play your ornamented version three times in a row without the underlying pulse drifting, move on to Lesson 49.

For the broader picture — how ornaments fit into Baroque rhetoric — see learning a piece.