Ornamentation of baroque music for brass

By writing these few lines on the ornamentation of Baroque music, it is not my intention to wish to teach soloists how to ornament their 17th and 18th century concerto or sonata parts. Even if I wanted to I could not do it in a few articles, considering the fact that musicologists have dedicated years of research to the subject and many books have been written as a result. My intention is to draw the brass player's attention to this problem which, however, is only part of the even more important one: the interpretation of Baroque music in general. Just as an indication: there are other domains to be explored if one wants to play Baroque music in the style of the period: articulation, tempi, inequality of note values, instrumentation just to show that the problem is not as simple as some people think it is. Ornamentation of music was, as we know, considered indispensable by musicians of the past.

The question for us now is: Why should we have ornaments today? To answer this question I shall simply expose here a few reasons of a practical nature for the soloist and of a psychological nature for the audience.