Antonio Bononcini (1677-1726)
Cantate per Contralto con Violini
Lontananza: Cantata in contralto
Tanto Avezzo: Cantata con violini
Sopra l’orme d’Irena: Cantata
Alois Mühlbacher (countertenor)
Ars Antiqua Austria/Gunar Letzbor (violin)
rec. 2022, St. Florian, Altomontesaal, Austria
Italian texts included. First recordings
Challenge Classics CC72925 [57]
Antonio Maria Bononcini, to give him his full name, was a member of an important family of string players and composers, which had its origins in Modena. The earliest of the family, so far as I know, was Giovanni Maria Bononcini (1642-1678). Other members of the family included his two sons, Giovanni (1670-1747) and Antonio Maria Bononcini (1677-1726), both of whom established reputations as cellists and composers. Both studied, when young, with Giovanni Paolo Colonna (1637-1695) in Bologna. Of Antonio we know that he was playing in the orchestra of Cardinal Pamphili in Rome, between 1690 and 1693 and that in 1698 he composed an allegory, La fama eroica, for performance in Rome. Early in the 1700s he joined his older brother in the court orchestra in Vienna where, in 1705 he became Kappelmeister to the future Holy Roman Emperor, Charles VI (1711-1740). However, the younger Bononcini soon returned to Italy, working briefly in Naples and Rome, before becoming (in 1721) maestro di capella in Modena, the city of his birth. He perhaps held this position until his death five years later. The three cantatas on this disc were, one imagines, composed during Antonio’s time in Vienna.
During his lifetime, Antonio’s music seems to have been overshadowed by that of his older brother, but that may now be changing. The music on this fine disc can only help to bolster the reputation of Antonio Bononcini. It is a delight from beginning to end; Bononcini’s writing is sophisticated and expressive. His background in opera is evident throughout. He is clearly a composer who – in these works at least – respects his texts (the authorship of which seems to be unknown). The texts speak of the loneliness of the lover kept at a distance by the beloved and Bononcini’s music is appropriately anxious and troubled, though never crudely so.
The soloist, countertenor Alois Mühlbacher has a fine voice, beautiful at its top end; he is utterly in control of his voice and always uses it intelligently. Some listeners might find his use of ornament excessive, though I don’t. It is beautiful and is open to being heard as an unhappy lover’s attempt to distract himself from his woes. The small ensemble accompanying him (two violins, cello, violone, theorbo and harpsichord) is thoroughly idiomatic, obviously well-schooled in the baroque style. The writing for the violins is often striking, providing a second contrapuntal line to Műhlbacher’s vocal line. The overall effect is an attractively sensuous form of lamentation.
At present Antonio Bononcini is seriously under-represented on CD. More soon, please!
Glyn Pursglove
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