The Probert Encyclopaedia of Music

ARIA

An aria is a musical composition for solo voice with instrumental accompaniment, usually forming part of an opera, oratorio, or cantata. It provides a lyrical pause in the dramatic action, during which a character can comment on some aspect of the drama. Often it is also a difficult piece, designed to display the singer's skill. The aria originated in Italy in the late 16th century as a short solo song, particularly a strophic song. Composers of the early 17th century developed the 'strophic-bass' aria, in which the bass remained constant for each stanza, while the melody was varied. These strophic-bass arias were subsequently adopted by early opera composers such as the Italian Claudio Monteverdi.

Shortly before 1650 a new aria form appeared, which dominated operatic music until about 1750. This was the da capo aria, written in three sections: ABA. To indicate the repeated A section, composers simply wrote the direction da capo after the B section. The da capo aria developed into a long musical structure with the B section usually in a contrasting but related key. An instrumental introduction usually preceded the A section, and an instrumental interlude separated the A and B sections. Many singers took advantage of the repeated A section, using it as a vehicle for virtuosic improvised variations.

Alessandro Scarlatti, helped establish the nearly universal use of the da capo aria. Later the 18th-century German-born composer George Frideric Handel used it extensively in his operas and oratorios, and his contemporary Johann Sebastian Bach used it in his oratorios and cantatas. In the late 18th century, operatic reformers such as the German Christoph Von Gluck, reacting against the da capo aria, employed a variety of aria forms. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and others often used arias with two contrasting sections, and the one-section cavatina also became popular.

The romanticism of the 19th century fostered wide variety in aria forms. In the late 19th century Wilhelm Wagner dispensed with the aria almost completely in his mature works, favouring a continuous span of music rather than a separation of action and lyrical comment. Although many 20th-century opera composers follow Wilhelm Wagner' s example, others use arias of many different formats.
Research Aria