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Air (Italian: "aria"; also ayr, ayre in French), a variant of the musical song form, is the name of various song-like vocal or instrumental compositions.

English lute ayres
Lute ayres emerged in the court of Elizabeth I of England toward the end of the 16th century and enjoyed considerable popularity until the 1620s. Probably based on Italian monody and French air de cour, they were solo songs, occasionally with more (usually three) parts, accompanied on a lute. (p. 306). Their popularity began with the publication of John Dowland's (1563-1626) First Booke of Songs or Ayres (1597). His most famous ayres include "Come again", "Flow my tears", "I saw my Lady weepe" and "In darkness let me dwell". The genre was further developed by Thomas Campion (1567-1620) whose Books of Airs (1601) (co-written with Philip Rosseter) containing over 100 lute songs and which was reprinted four times in the 1610s. Although this printing boom died out in the 1620s, ayres continued to be written and performed and were often incorporated into court masques. (p. 309).

Baroque and classical airs
By the 18th century the term came to be used also for purely instrumental lyrical pieces, often movements of some larger work. Popular examples include the Air from the 3rd Orchestral Suite, BWV 1068 (of which Air on the G String is an arrangement for violin and piano made in the 19th century by August Wilhelmj) and the Goldberg Aria with variations, BWV 988, a baroque clavier work, both composed by J. S. Bach, and the Air from Water Music, in the Suite in F Major, HWV 348, by George Frideric Handel.