[182] This voyage took place from February, 1719, to the end of the same year. When Handel was staying at Halle, J. S. Bach, who was then at Cothen, about four miles away, was informed of it, and went there to see him, but he only arrived at Halle the very day when Handel was about to leave. Such at least is the story of Forkel. [183] The poem was by Haym. From 1722 the work was given at Hamburg with a translation of Mattheson. [184] Before him Domenico Scarlatti had already visited London, where he had given unsuccessfully an opera, _Narcissus_, 1720. [185] He was born in 1671 or 1672, for his first opus appeared in 1684 or 1685, when he was little more than thirteen years old. Giovanni Bononcini was far from being well known. He was not a celebrated musician, on which account there are many disagreements. Bononcini was the name of a long string of musicians, and one has been frequently confounded with the other. Such mistakes are found even in the critical work of Eitner (where they rest on a great error in reading) and in the most recent Italian works, as that of Luigi Torchi, who in his instrumental music in Italy, 1901, confounds all the Bononcini together. Luigi Francesco Valdreghi's monograph _I Bononcini in Modena_, 1882, is more reliable, although very incomplete. [186] Gianmaria Bononcini was Chapel-Master of the Cathedral of Modena, and attached to the service of Duke Francis II. A fine violinist, author of instrumental sonatas in suites, to which Mr. Torchi and Sir Hubert Parry attribute great historical importance. He had a reflective spirit, and dedicated in 1673 to the Emperor Leopold I a treatise on Harmony and Counterpoint, entitled _Musico Practico_, which was afterwards reprinted. He died in 1678, less than forty years old. [187] Several of his early works are dedicated to Francis II of Modena, and his 8th opus, _Duetti da Camera_, 1691, is dedicated to the Emperor Leopold I, who caused him to be engaged for the Court Chapel. [188] He was a celebrated violoncellist. [189] Alfred Ebert: _Attilo Ariosto in Berlin_, 1905, Leipzig. [190] See Lecerf de la Viéville: _Eclaircissement sur Bononcini_, published in the 3rd part of his _Comparaison de la musique française avec la musique italienne_ (1706). [191] "Like Corelli," says Lecerf, "he had a few fugues, contra fugues, based on conceits, frequently in other Italian works, and he made many delicious things from all the lesser used intervals, the most valiant and the most strange. His dissonances struck fear." [192] See the gentle suspension of notes in the Cantata _Dori e Aminta_ (manuscript in the Library of the Conservatoire of Paris), or the _Cantata Care luci (ibid.)_. [193] "What is necessary in music," said _The London Journal_ of February 24, 1722, "is that it should chase away _ennui_, and relieve clever men from the trouble of thinking."