Ornamentation in Vocal Music from 1580-1640 Ornamentation in the Early Baroque period is an exotic thought to the modern performer. The ideal that this ornamentation was implied by the composer, and not needed to be written in published editions. Fortunately for the modern singer there are numerous texts that have survived from this time. Dalla Casa's Il vero modo di diminuir (1584),and Bovicelli's Regole, passagi di musica a far passagi (1594) survive as examples from the late renaissance, and help to form the basis for the training of vocalists in the Early Baroque. While both of these texts reflect performance practice at the time, the most accessible treatise surviving is Caccini’s Le Nuove Musiche (Baroque Period) ]page 185 in Grove Concise. It is within this text that each ornamentation from this period has been greatly detailed, with musical examples provided with ornamentation written in (a key aspect of the continuing value of this work.). …show more content…
Wiley Hitchcock's second edition of Le Nuove Musiche has served as a foundation and conduit for further research on the work itself, and on early baroque ornamentation overall. Published originally in 1970, Hitchcock's translation with annotated scholarship of the preface, and musical scores in modern notation has served as one of the first scholarly editions of the work, and is at current the critical edition (urtext). It is to be noted that the first English translation of Le Nuove Musiche was published by John Playford in 1693, although it is generally agreed upon that this edition of the preface (Playford) is incomplete and is host to numerous errors. Numerous other articles and translations