Facts : 1 Bach was generally quite specific on ornamentation in his compositions (where in his time much of the ornamentation was not written out by composers, rather being considered a liberty of the performer), and his ornamentation was often quite elaborate
Facts : 2 For instance, the Aria of the Goldberg Variations has rich ornamentation in nearly every measure
Facts : 3 Bach s dealing with ornamentation can also be seen in a keyboard arrangement he made of Marcello s Oboe Concerto: he added written out ornamentation, which, some centuries later, is played by oboists when performing the concerto
Facts : 4 Although Bach didn t write any opera, he wasn t averse to the genre, nor to its ornamented vocal style
Facts : 5 In church music Italian composers had imitated the operatic vocal style in genres such as the Neapolitan mass
Facts : 6 In protestant surroundings there was more reticence to adopt such style for liturgical music, for instance Kuhnau, Bach s predecessor in Leipzig, had notoriously written against opera and Italianate virtuoso vocal music
Facts : 7 Bach was less imbued, and indeed one of the comments after a performance of his St Matthew Passion was that it all sounded much like opera