The Short

492 APPOGGIATURAS, TRILLS, TURNS
start, but his comment that it should begin with the upper note, ‘not as many mistakenly believe with the note itself’, 907
also reveals the diversity of eighteenth-century practice.
Those who advocated an upper-note start as the rule during the second half of the eighteenth century were
undoubtedly, as Koch remarked, in the majority; but Koch expressed no preference and observed that it was scarcely a
matter of much importance whether the trill began one way or the other, since there was no audible difference after
the initial note had been sounded. Despite Marpurg's often-quoted remark about the trill being a series of reiterated
appoggiaturas, it seems highly unlikely that this view, emphasizing the dissonance of the auxiliary throughout the length
of the trill (which, in any case, would only have been obvious in a rather slow trill), was significant in the late eighteenth
century. The trill was overwhelmingly seen as an embellishment in which the harmonic and melodic primacy of the
main note remained distinct. Domenico Corri acknowledged two principal manners of performing a trill in singing,
remarking that some recommended a ‘close rapid shake, giving a brilliancy and shortness to the upper Note’, while
others, including himself (following his master Porpora), required it with ‘equality of notes, distinctly marked and
moderately quick. Also that the Note which bears the Shake ought to be the most predominant, and if the auxiliary
Note is too closely blended the principal cannot be sufficiently distinguished.’ 908 In his publications Corri appears to
indicate some cadential trills beginning with the main note, others with the upper note. However, Philip Corri, in
L'anima di musica, published in the same year as his father's Singer's Preceptor, instructed, ‘The turn and sometimes the
first note of the shake is written (tho' it is understood without it)’, observing that the figures in Ex. 13.49(a) ‘would be
played alike’, and added ‘Sometimes the shake begins with an inverted turn [Ex. 13.49(b)] Hence the shake must begin
either above or below, and end on the principal note, but never begin on the principal note.’ 909 On the other hand,
Domenico Corri's younger son Haydn Corri gave examples of trills beginning on the main note; but, eschewing
dogmatism, he added the following nota bene:
Ex. 13.49. P. A. Corri, L'anima di musica, 18–19
907
Ueber die Pflichten, 46.
908
The Singer's Preceptor, 30.
909 pp. 18 –19.