Antoine Clapisson was born on November 13, 1779 in Lyon. His father Léonard was a wind instrument maker there. Clapisson was probably a horn student of Giovanni Puntos (1745–1803) in Paris. He participated as a military musician in Napoleon Bonaparte's Egyptian campaign (1798–1801). In 1805 he married the Swiss-born Philippine Dubois. At that time he was a musician in the 22nd Light Infantry Regiment in Besançon. Later, before 1808, he moved with his family to Naples, where he served under the local King Joachim Murat, who ruled there from 1808 to 1815. He was also head of the Vélites de la Garde du Roi Murat, taught at the conservatory, and was first horn player at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. The political conditions of 1815 forced Clapisson to withdraw to Lyon at first. As a military musician considered a Bonapartist, he could no longer find work with the newly reorganized army. However, he found employment as first horn at the Grand Théâtre of Bordeaux, where he died on April 7, 1857.
Clapisson's oeuvre does not seem to have been small. Whistling's Handbuch der musikalischen Literatur of 1828, for example, lists 12 published works with duos for 2 horns, various duos for horn and other wind instruments, trios for 3 horns, a quartet for 3 horns and trombone, and a fantasy for piano and horn.
