Giovanni Battista Bononcini
Encyclopedia
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
Baroque
Baroque music
Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
and cellist, one of a family of string players and composers. His father, Giovanni Maria Bononcini
Giovanni Maria Bononcini
Giovanni Maria Bononcini was an Italian violinist composer, the father of a musical dynasty.In 1671 Bononcini the elder became a court musician at Modena. His treatise, Musico prattico, was published in 1673....
(1642–78), was a violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
ist and a composer.
Biography
Bononcini was born in Modena, Italy, the oldest of three sons. (His younger brother, Antonio Maria BononciniAntonio Maria Bononcini
Antonio Maria Bononcini was an Italian cellist and composer, the younger brother of the better-known Giovanni Battista Bononcini....
, was also a composer.) Giovanni Battista studied the cello in Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
. He then served as maestro di cappella at San Giovanni in Monte and afterwards worked in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. From 1720 to 1732 he was in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where for a time his popularity rivaled Handel's. (Their competition inspired the epigram
Epigram
An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....
by John Byrom
John Byrom
John Byrom or John Byrom of Kersal or John Byrom of Manchester FRS was an English poet and inventor of a revolutionary system of shorthand. He is also remembered as the writer of the lyrics of Anglican hymn Christians Awake, salute the happy morn.- Early life :John Byrom was descended from an old...
that made the phrase "Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Tweedledum and Tweedledee are fictional characters in an English language nursery rhyme and in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. Their names may have originally come from an epigram written by poet John Byrom. The nursery rhyme has a Roud Folk Song Index number...
" famous.) Bononcini left London after charges of plagiarism
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
were proven against him. He died in poverty in Vienna, leaving behind a wife and 4 children.
Compositions
He published his earliest works for the cello, his instrument, in 1685 in Bologna. His works other include a number of operaOpera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
s, masses
Mass (music)
The Mass, a form of sacred musical composition, is a choral composition that sets the invariable portions of the Eucharistic liturgy to music...
, and a funeral anthem for the Duke of Marlborough
John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough
John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, Prince of Mindelheim, KG, PC , was an English soldier and statesman whose career spanned the reigns of five monarchs through the late 17th and early 18th centuries...
. One of his operas, Xerse
Xerse (Bononcini)
Xerse is an opera in three acts by Giovanni Battista Bononcini. It was designated as a dramma per musica. The libretto was written by Silvio Stampiglia after that by Nicolò Minato which had been used for the 1654 opera of the same name by Francesco Cavalli...
, parodied material in an earlier setting of that opera by Francesco Cavalli
Francesco Cavalli
Francesco Cavalli was an Italian composer of the early Baroque period. His real name was Pietro Francesco Caletti-Bruni, but he is better known by that of Cavalli, the name of his patron Federico Cavalli, a Venetian nobleman.-Life:Cavalli was born at Crema, Lombardy...
. This included the aria Ombra mai fu
Ombra mai fu
"Ombra mai fu" is the opening aria from the 1738 opera Serse by George Frideric Handel.-Context:The opera was a commercial failure, lasting only five performances in London after its premiere. In the 19th century, however, the aria was rediscovered and became one of Handel's best-known pieces...
. Bononcini's Xerse was in turn later adapted by George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
with a third (and best known) version of Ombra mai fu
Ombra mai fu
"Ombra mai fu" is the opening aria from the 1738 opera Serse by George Frideric Handel.-Context:The opera was a commercial failure, lasting only five performances in London after its premiere. In the 19th century, however, the aria was rediscovered and became one of Handel's best-known pieces...
.
Operas
- XerseXerse (Bononcini)Xerse is an opera in three acts by Giovanni Battista Bononcini. It was designated as a dramma per musica. The libretto was written by Silvio Stampiglia after that by Nicolò Minato which had been used for the 1654 opera of the same name by Francesco Cavalli...
(1694) - Il trionfo di Camilla (1696)
- L'amore eroica fra pastori (1696)
- La clemenza di Augusto (1697)
- La fede pubblica (1699)
- Cefalo (1702)
- Etearco (1707)
- Maria fuggitivo (1708)
- Astarto (1720)
- L'odio e l'amore (1721)
- Crispo (1721)
- GriseldaGriselda (Giovanni Bononcini)Griselda is a dramma per musica in three acts that was composed by Giovanni Battista Bononcini. The opera uses a revised version of the 1701 Italian libretto by Apostolo Zeno that was based on Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron . The Italian poet Paolo Antonio Rolli was hired to revise the text...
(1722) - Erminia (1723)
- Calphurnia (1724)
- Astianatte (1727)
- Alessandro in Sidone (1737)
Other works
- Oratorio San Nicola di Bari (Silvio StampigliaSilvio StampigliaSilvio Stampiglia was an Italian poet, librettist, and founder member of the Accademia dell'Arcadia under the penname of Palemone Licurio.-Libretti:Operas...
, Rome 1693) - Messe brevi (1688)
- Divertimenti da camera (1722)
- XII Sonatas for the Chamber (1732)
- Lidio, schernito amante (cantata)
External links
Nightingale Aria from Fuori di sua capanna attributed to Bononcini