Francesco Antonio Bonporti (1672-1749) was a priest first and musician second: a ‘gentiluomo di Trento’ as he described himself on the title page of his Op.1 trio sonatas. Chamber music continued to be Bonporti’s preferred creative outlet, at a time when cantatas and increasingly operas obtained wider favour, and his increasingly strenuous attempts to gain royal or aristocratic preferment by dedicating and sending his works to kings, queens and princes proved ever fruitless: he died as he worked, a humble cleric. 

Bonporti’s gifts as a composer only began to be fully appreciated a century ago, and he can now be regarded among the most gifted north Italian composers of his generation, his music even worthy at points of being mistaken for Bach’s, as it has been more than once in confused manuscript collections. The language of Corelli lies behind Bonporti’s idiom in these trio sonatas, but his creative imagination ranged far and wide, not indebted to any local or popular idiom but always sympathetically conceived for his instruments, and for the violin in particular. The slow movements are more developed than most contemporary Italian comparisons; at all points Bonporti’s imaginative harmony and lively part-writing can be enjoyed by any listener who is keen to look beyond the tried and tested trio sonata repertoire. 

Founded in 2006, Associazione Labirinti Armonici is an early-music ensemble of flexible formation, led by scholarship and close study of manuscripts and critical editions in its revival of repertoire from the Baroque. Like Bonporti, the ensemble is based in the Trento region of Italy, making festival appearances and giving masterclasses in early music.