The da capo aria of Baroque opera is commonly heard as A–B–A. The first section establishes the key, melody and a character’s principal affect; the second moves into a contrasting key or emotional space; then the score says “da capo”, directing the singer back to the beginning. Because the third section is often not written out again, it looks like repetition on paper. In performance, however, it is not a recording being rewound.
Singers traditionally added ornaments on the return, provided they respected the melody, harmony and dramatic identity of the character. More ornament is not automatically better, nor should every long note be filled. Its purpose is to let us hear that the same words now carry what happened in the B section. In Cleopatra’s “Piangerò la sorte mia” from Handel’s Giulio Cesare, the opening lament returns after a more agitated middle section. The underlying music remains recognisable, but the character’s despair has acquired a different weight.
Listen for three things held together: the melody remains identifiable, decoration does not displace the sentence’s centre of gravity, and the return feels genuinely more urgent or inward. My judgement is that the form depends on sameness and change at once. An exact copy can arrest the drama; alteration beyond recognition can erase the form. Pianists can bring the same question to written repeats: difference need not mean extra notes, but may arise through touch, voicing and the distribution of time.
https://www.britannica.com/art/aria-solo-song
https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/display/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000043315
https://imslp.org/wiki/Giulio_Cesare_in_Egitto%2C_HWV_17_(Handel%2C_George_Frideric)
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