Anna Bon, the Venetian virtuoso: one of the stars of the coro, the celebrated girl’s orchestra at the Pietà orphanage in Venice, and a prolific composer who held some of the most exalted posts in Europe in her all too short life.
She wasn’t actually an orphan. But her parents were touring musicians, constantly on the road, and had just come back from Saint Petersburg when she was born, in Venice, in 1738. At the age of four they enrolled her as a fee paying student at La Pietà, the school where Vivaldi had taught; and when she emerged at 18 she was an accomplished composer and harpsichord virtuoso, rejoining her parents at some of the finest courts in Europe. The Margrave of Brandenburg made her his chamber music virtuosa at his court in Bayreuth.
The early 1760s she spent at Eisenstadt, engaged by the Esterhazys along with young Joseph Haydn. So, much of her music survives, because it was preserved at these great courts: trio sonatas, solo sonatas, divertimentos and songs, one lost opera. Her Opus 1 flute sonatas dedicated to the Margrave of Brandenburg are particularly beautiful.
And then we lose sight of her – until her death, in 1767, by which time she had married an Italian singer and was employed at the court of Thuringia in Germany. There was a smallpox epidemic sweeping Europe at that time; perhaps she died from smallpox. Or perhaps she died in childbirth. We just don’t know
Anna Bon (1738 – 1767)
MUSIC: Flute Sonata Op.1 no.1 in C
Monica Finco, flute; Roberto Scarpa Meylougan, organ
Presented by Anna Clyne
Written and produced by Charlotte Wilson for WMHT
