The Instrument

Unlike most other mineteenth-century Italian opera composers (with the notable exeption of Rossini), the vast catalogue of Gaetano Donizetti's (1797-1848) composition includes a large number of works scored for orchestra and chamber groups. Most of these pieces were composed between 1816 and 1821 - the five-year period, that is, during which the Lombard composer was perfecting the musical education begun in his native Bergamo and making his first attempts at operatic composition. The composition of Etude for B-flat clarinet dates from this period - from 1821, to be precise. It was dedicated to a clarinetist with whom we are unfamiliar but whom the autograph manuscript, housed in the Donizetti Museum at Bergamo designates as <>. Compositions for clarinet were quite rare in the instrumental literature of the time, and not anly in Italy. Taking into consideration the date of composition as well as vartious other compositional analogies, we have cause to believe that Nicoló Paganini's Etude for solo clarinet, published by Giovani Ricordi the year before, i.e. in 1820, served as the model for Donizetti's piece. The composition of Etude is also reminiscent of Paganini's Capricci, in its aim to archive technical virtuosity not as an end in itself but imbued, on the contrary, with an articulated and coberent musical content.