Gaetano Brunetti manuscripts online at the Library of Congress
Karen Lund and Susan Clermont
Monday, August 3, 2020
We have received the following from our colleagues at the Library of Congress:
The Library of Congress’ Music Division has put 53 holograph and 64 copyist manuscripts of Italian composer Gaetano Brunetti online.
Gaetano Brunetti (1744-1798) was an Italian composer and violinist who moved to Spain as a teenager in 1762, and was a vital contributor in that country’s musical resurgence. Very few of Gaetano Brunetti’s musical works were published during his lifetime and, consequently, they remained virtually unknown for almost two centuries.
Professor German Labrador Lopez De Azcona’s comprehensive thematic catalog that includes a biographical summary, details pertaining to the manuscript sources, and essays on the various genres of Brunetti’s works (Catálogo crítico, temático y cronológico. Colección de monografías, no. 8. Madrid: Asociación española de documentación musical, 2005) certainly advanced Brunetti’s stature and popularity as a classical composer; the catalog also highlighted the fact that the Library of Congress Music Division holds close to half of Brunetti’s extant musical manuscripts, both holograph and contemporary copies, among its collections.
The majority of these works are for chamber music; twenty-two are orchestral works and one is a sacred vocal composition with orchestral accompaniment.
Image: Autograph manuscript of Brunetti’s Sinfonie concertanti L. 330, C major, Library of Congress (US-Wc) ML96.B84; RISM ID no. 108547.
Share Tweet Email
Category: Library collections
