In the beautiful – and extraordinarily mild and sunny – atmosphere of Modena, home town of the Bononcini family, about twenty scholars gathered to investigate the career and production of these influential musicians, from the publication of Giovanni Maria Bononcini's Op. 1 (1666) to the international success of the family's second generation, including Giovanni Maria, Antonio Maria and Giovanni. This was the third conference organized by the Festival Musicale Estense ‘Grandezze & Meraviglie’ in collaboration with the research group Arcomelo 2013, following the 2013 celebrations for Arcangelo Corelli in Fusignano and the 2014 conference on Neapolitan instrumental music in Villa Santa Maria. The 2016 meeting saw the participation of several international institutions: the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Museo internazionale e biblioteca della musica di Bologna, Istituto Abbruzzese di Storia Musicale, University of Oregon at Eugene and University of Texas at Austin.

After a moving commemoration for the soprano Lavinia Bertotti (1957–2016), the conference opened the first of its six sessions with a paper by Gregory Barnett (Rice University). In his ‘G. M. Bononcini's Musical Ideas and Ideal musico’ Barnett examined the innovative approach taken by Giovanni Maria Bononcini's Musico prattico (1673) to the dichotomy between musico and prattico, a separation debated in numerous theoretical treatises since Boethius. According to Barnett, Bononcini, urged by what he perceived as a music-theoretical crisis, brought together in an original vision the theoretical and practical aspects of music in his time. Making references to both the political and the musical contexts of the treatise, Barnett showed how Bononcini applied his theoretical principles concerning fugal style, rhythmic notation and modal analysis to his own compositions. In the following paper, Maria Paola Del Duca (Rome) focused on the same composer's collection of madrigals, Op. 11 (1678). After discussing the connections of this opus with its dedicatee, the Emperor Leopold I, and the music's use for private performances, Del Duca traced the influence of Bononcini's madrigals on German musicians such as Johann Theile and Christoph Bernhard.

In the second session, Sara Dieci and Alessandra Rossi (Fondazione Arcadia) described the ‘Bononcini Project’ of the Fondazione Arcadia, being conducted in collaboration with the Italian Musicological Society, the Università di Roma Tor Vergata and Clori: Archivio della cantata italiana. The project's main goal is to create an online database of the entire production of Giovanni Bononcini. The database (available at www.bononcini.org) already contains about three thousand entries, in addition to a bibliography, a discography and digital images for some sources, with several advanced-search options. The Fondazione Arcadia is also sponsoring modern editions and performances with the goal of promoting the knowledge, diffusion and appreciation of Giovanni Bononcini's music. In ‘The Role of the Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna in the Printing, Performance and Diffusion of Instrumental Music in Europe’ Annarosa Vannoni (Conservatorio di Musica Giovan Battista Martini, Bologna) and Romano Vettori (Conservatorio di Musica Giuseppe Tartini, Trieste) drew upon a wealth of documents from the archive of the Accademia Filarmonica to offer new information on the compositori, suonatori e cantanti of this prestigious institution. They detailed the procedures for admission to the Accademia, offering a vivid panorama of musical activity in Bologna at the time of the Bononcinis.

The session dedicated to instrumental music opened with my presentation (Guido Olivieri, University of Texas at Austin) on two cello sonatas by Giovanni Bononcini included in a manuscript now at the library of Montecassino. As confirmed by the watermarks and by the presence of other works by Neapolitan composers, the source is of Neapolitan origin and the sonatas were probably written just before 1696–1697, when Bononcini was in Naples for the staging of his opera Il trionfo di Camilla. The musical styles, techniques and types of cello used by Giovanni and Antonio Maria Bononcini in their sonatas for the instrument were the subject of a paper by Marc Vanscheeuwijck (University of Oregon). Through musical analysis and by looking at a remarkable assortment of sources, including treatises, archival documents and outstanding iconographical evidence, Vanscheeuwijck demonstrated the great variety and flexibility of performance practices relating to this musical corpus, paying special attention to the tunings and set-ups of the instruments used by these two composers. His paper also suggested that the style of Antonio Maria Bononcini's cello sonatas could be taken to exemplify the practice of continuo realization on the cello.

In the same session, Walter Kurt Kreyszig (University of Saskatchewan) considered the dialectic between theoretical and practical approaches in Giovanni Maria Bononcini's music from another perspective, concentrating on canons and other contrapuntal aspects in several instrumental works. Illustrating his arguments with numerous music examples ranging from Josquin to Bach, Kreyszig revealed how Bononcini's theoretical discussion and practical applications of contrapuntal techniques belonged to a well-established tradition and remained an influential source for later composers. Next, Angela Romagnoli (Università di Pavia) examined Antonio Bononcini's cantatas with recorders. After summarizing the recorder's significant role in Vienna, especially for amateur performers such as the Emperor Leopold I, Romagnoli stressed the importance of in-depth analysis of manuscript sources for reconstructing and editing these works. In fact, a careful look at the performing parts for these cantatas reveals the use of the bassoon as a continuo instrument and recorders playing in unison, practices of which there is no trace in the scores.

Two sessions were dedicated to vocal works of the Bononcinis. Giovanni Bononcini's operatic production was at the core of papers by Teresa Chirico (Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia, Rome) and Rosalind Halton (University of Newcastle, Australia). Chirico examined the favola entitled L'amor eroico frà pastori, a puppet opera premiered in Cardinal Ottoboni's Palazzo della Cancelleria during Carnival 1696. Since the score and printed libretto of this work are lost, Chirico's reconstruction was based on manuscript librettos and extant aria anthologies. She assessed the attributions of arias to three contributing composers (Carlo Francesco Cesarini, Giovanni Lulier and Giovanni Bononcini) and discussed several documents relating to the performance and reception of this singular opera. Considering the same year of 1696 as a turning-point in Giovanni's career and in seventeenth-century Italian opera more generally, Rosalind Halton examined Bononcini's Il trionfo di Camilla, premiered in Naples on 27 December. She emphasized the role of the Duke of Medinaceli, Viceroy of Naples, as patron of this opera and in promoting several premieres on the Neapolitan stage that included singers from Bologna and Mantua. Halton also analysed elements of Bononcini's operatic style, such as idiomatic violin writing in the 12/8 arias and similarities with some of Scarlatti's contemporaneous works.

Elena Abbado (Florence) called attention to the Florentine sacred vocal works of Giovanni Maria Bononcini and son Giovanni. Four masses for eight voices by Giovanni Maria and two oratorios by Giovanni are preserved in unica manuscripts at the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata in Florence. This repertory appears to relate to the musical activities of the Servite Order in Modena and Florence. Focusing on interpreters, function and audience, Abbado effectively reconstructed the Florentine context for the Bononcinis’ music. Giovanni Bononcini's Roman serenatas were the subject of a paper by Chiara Pelliccia (Deutsches Historisches Institut Rom), who discussed five serenatas performed in August of each year during the period 1692–1696. These works formed part of a cycle dedicated to Lorenza de La Cerda, wife of Filippo Colonna. Thanks to new archival documents, Pelliccia was able to note how the Arcadian themes in the librettos of Silvio Stampiglia led to the development of a topos concerned with the sublimation of love.

The conference's last session was fittingly devoted to the reception and influence of the Bononcinis’ music. Livio Marcaletti (Universität Wien) looked at the scoring of cantatas and serenatas written by Antonio Bononcini during his stay in Vienna. The presence in the imperial court orchestra of excellent string players and a variety of winds, including recorders and chalumeaux, allowed for some peculiar instrumentations. By comparing existing scores and parts, Marcaletti inferred that the availability of this large orchestra produced a ‘Viennese-flavoured’ concerto-grosso instrumentation evident in several vocal works. A portrait of Margherita Balletti, actress, dancer and wife of Giovanni Bononcini, was the subject of a paper by Michela Zaccaria (Università di Firenze). With the help of new archival materials, Zaccaria reconstructed the personal and professional links between the Bononcini and Balletti families, the latter occupying a significant place among the comici dell'arte at the court of Modena. Giacomo Gibertoni (Deutsches Historisches Institut Rom) closed the conference with an overview of the rivalry and reciprocal influence between Giovanni Bononcini and Handel. Although among the best-known and most frequently cited evidence of Bononcini's influence on other composers, Handel's borrowings from him have never been systematically studied. Gibertoni offered an updated view on this influence as well as an overview of the comparisons between the two musicians by critics and historians.

In line with the previous Arcomelo 2013 conferences, five concerts and a ‘convito musicale’ complemented the lectures’ theoretical approaches, providing an opportunity to explore performance issues in works by this family of influential musicians. Students of the Kunstuniversität Graz, the Conservatorio di Musica Giovan Battista Martini of Bologna and the Early Music Department of the Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag performed three concerts of works by Giovanni Maria Bononcini, including music for two violins and basso, cantatas and divertimenti ‘per varii strumenti’ and works for Mary of Modena, Queen of England. Susanne Scholz and Michael Hell delighted the audience with a lively and enlightening journey through music for violin at the time of Giovanni Maria Bononcini. Ensemble Aurora, led by Enrico Gatti, gave a concert of sonatas ‘da camera e da ballo’ and a final event celebrating the ensemble's thirty-year anniversary. Both performances left a memorable impression of the precision, elegance and perceptiveness that have always characterized this ensemble's work. This was the ideal conclusion to a productive investigation of the Bononcinis’ legacy that will certainly contribute to an increased appreciation of this influential family of musicians, an appreciation that should further deepen with the eventual publication of the conference proceedings.