Page "Vibrato" Paragraph 12

Certain types of vibrato, then, were seen as an ornament, but this does not mean that it was used sparingly.

In wind playing too, it seems that vibrato in music up to the 20th century was seen as an ornament to be used selectively.

Martin Agricola writing in his Musica instrumentalis deudch ( 1529 ) writes of vibrato in this way.

Occasionally, composers up to the baroque period indicated vibrato with a wavy line in the sheet music.

Again, this does not suggest that it was not desired for the rest of the piece any more than the infrequent use of the term in 20th-century works suggests that it is not used elsewhere.