The COLLEGIUM VOCALE OF ST. LOUIS (CVSL) is proud to present The Fabulous Bononcinis, a concert of Baroque vocal chamber music on Sunday, April 23, 2023 at 3:00 p.m. The concert will be presented at Gethsemane Lutheran Church, 3600 Hampton, St. Louis, 63109. Admission is free, but donations are gratefully accepted. Dr. Bruce Carvell, Artistic Director of the Collegium Vocale, will offer pre-concert remarks at 2:30. Admission is free, but donations are gratefully accepted.
Among the long list of notable composers of the 17th and early 18th centuries, one family is outstanding. Giovanni Maria Bononcini, a celebrated violinist and composer, was the father of two sons who also are numbered among the most accomplished of their day. The older son, Giovanni Battista, a cellist, and composer, was Handel’s chief rival as a composer of opera. The younger son, Antonio Maria, also a cellist and composer, spent many years working in the Hapsburg court in Vienna. While their music is infrequently heard today, all were highly respected in their own time and enjoyed international reputations.
The program will feature cantatas, arias, and duets by all three Bononcinis, performed by members of the Collegium Vocale of St. Louis.
These works have all been newly edited from original sources for this performance.
The secular cantata in this period is a solo composition sung in Italian, featuring arias and recitatives. They are miniature operatic scenes that often depict the trials and tribulations of love. Between 1650 and 1750, hundreds, if not thousands, of such cantatas, were composed throughout Europe, especially in Italy.
An ensemble of top local baroque string players will accompany the Collegium Vocale of St. Louis for this performance. This music will be receiving its first performance in St. Louis. This is an opportunity to hear these rarely performed works by these excellent composers in a live performance.
The COLLEGIUM VOCALE OF ST. LOUIS is an ensemble devoted to presenting historically informed performances of a diverse and wide-ranging repertory of seventeenth and 18th-century music for voices and instruments.