Bononcini [key], musical family of Modena, Italy. Giovanni Maria Bononcini, 1642–78, choirmaster and organist at Bologna and Modena, was a composer and the author of Musico prattico (1673). His son Giovanni Bononcini, 1670–1747, was a composer, chiefly of operas. In London he was the associate and later the rival of Handel. The opera Muzio Scevola (London, 1721) was a pasticcio by Bononcini, Filippo Mattei, and Handel. His opera Camilla (London, 1706), often erroneously attributed to Antonio Mira, helped begin the English fashion for Italian opera. After failing in his operatic ventures Bononcini, charged with plagiarism, left England and spent the rest of his life in obscure wanderings. He composed operas, produced in Venice, from 1748. Another son, Antonio Maria Bononcini, 1677–1726, became musical director to the duke of Modena in 1721. He wrote many operas, most of which were produced in Venice.
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