Giovanni Bononcini (1670 - 1747)
Born in Modena in 1670, the eldest son of violinist and composer Giovanni Maria Bononcini, Giovanni studied initially with his father. Orphaned at age eight, he and his younger brother, Antonio Maria, trained as cellists and performed together in Bologna, Rome, and Vienna, before parting ways professionally in 1713.
Around 1691, Bononcini moved from Vienna to Rome and quickly established himself as a composer of vocal music, especially opera. By the end of the first decade of the new century, Bononcini had reached certifiable stardom. His 1696 opera, Il trionfo di Camilla, was performed throughout Italy and in London, his cantatas were prized in Paris, his new dramatic works were hailed in Vienna and Berlin, and he was renowned as a cellist of the first rank across the continent, performing with Pasquini and Corelli in Rome.
In 1720 Bononcini joined London’s Royal Academy of Music (which employed Handel as well as Ariosti), where he met with great initial success, with multiple performances of his operas and prestigious commissions. The 1721 publication of his Cantate e Duetti reflects this success; the list of subscribers, headed by the Prince and Princess of Wales, runs to nearly four pages of English nobility, gentlemen, and ladies. Caught up in the religious and political infighting of a fractious London nobility, however, Bononcini was marginalized in 1722 with few prospects for performances or commissions. The composer resolved to abandon London for Paris where work awaited him, but remained in England, enticed by an offer of permanent employment in the household of Henrietta, the recently-named Duchess of Marlborough. Both Burney and Hawkins reported that this appointment not only offered a lucrative salary but also stipulated that the twice weekly private performances for the Duchess and her guests be comprised exclusively of music by Bononcini.
Although service in Henrietta’s household appeared to take him out of the musical mainstream, Bononcini remained a public figureand seemed unable to avoid trouble in London. His only opera presented in these years, Astianatte, achieved notoriety not for its music but for its audiences’ rambunctious behavior on behalf of their favorite stars. And in 1731, Bononcini was chastised by the Academy of Ancient Music (of which he was a member) for blatantly plagiarizing a madrigal by Antonio Lotti.
Late that same year, Bononcini and Henrietta had a falling out over finances, and in 1732 he embarked on a peripatetic career that took him to Paris, Madrid, and Lisbon. He all but abandoned the stage in his later years, focusing his compositional efforts on sacred or liturgical music. By 1736, Bononcini had returned to Vienna, the site of some of his earliest musical triumphs, where he enjoyed the support of Empress Maria Theresa until his death there in 1747.
Bononcini’s cello sonata clearly demonstrates his role in creating the gallant style, a transitional style that bridged the baroque and the early classical era. The grace and delicacy of the four movements belie the work’s technical competency which reflects Bononcini’s role as one of Europe’s most-esteemed cellists.
