During the first decade of the eighteenth century, a new generation of Italian composers brought the latest styles to a Vienna lagging behind the musical innovations that were occurring in cities such as Venice, Rome, and Naples. Among the intrepid individuals to join the Habsburg court was the north Italian composer Antonio Maria Bononcini (1677–1726). When Antonio began his service to the Habsburg emperor, he was still a young and little-known composer, but it was in Vienna that he distinguished himself as one of his generation’s most gifted composers of dramatic vocal music. The six cantatas by Antonio Bononcini found in this edition, from the Viennese manuscript A-Wn, Mus.Hs.17607, are written for soprano or alto with strings, and the string instrumentation is unique in specifying two of the violins and the violoncello as di concerto (that is, concertino), and two violins and double bass as di concerto grosso (that is, ripieno). These cantatas represent the new Italian style that flourished at the imperial Viennese court of Emperor Joseph I. Through their innovative use of form, design features, affective harmony, melody, and rhythm, they demonstrate that, although Antonio’s cantata output is much smaller than that of his more famous brother Giovanni, his compositional style reveals a composer of superior craftsmanship and imagination.
