Complete Encyclopaedia of Music/A/Aria fugata
Aria fugata. (I.) Fugued air. An elaborate species of melody, much used formerly, and frequently found in the operas of Handel, Bononcini, and their contemporaries. The aria fugata was so called because the accompanying parts were written in fugue. This labored kind of song writing is now judiciously declined, as undramatic, because deficient in the first of all lyric qualities - passionate expression.