This edition of 19 duets for two horns is based on a print by the composer and horn player, probably D. Chiapparelli. The title reads exactly as follows:
Recueil / DE DUOS et ARIETTES / Pour Deux Cors de Chasse /Dédié / A Mr. M.D.T *** / Composé Par / D. Chiapparelli / Oeuvre Ier / Prix 1.tt 16.l / A LYON / Chez GUERA Place de la Comédie / CASTAUD Place de la Comédie / SERRIERRE rue Sirène / A PARIS et en Province
In the magazine Mercure de France, this work was announced in 1777:
Unfortunately, little could be found out about the composer. Whether his first name — given only as D. — was actually Dominik has not been established. Around the same time, Six Sonates pour Flûte et Basse appeared in Paris. In the publisher's catalog of Guera in Lyon, another work by Chiapparelli appears in 1781: 24 Duos et Airs pour Cors de Chasse, Oeuvre 6.
This work was advertised in 1782 in the publisher's catalog of Breitkopf in Leipzig:
A copy of this print has since been lost. A little later, around 1780, a 1st Concerto for horn appeared with the Parisian publisher Sieber; this work, too, cannot presently be located.
Chiapparelli's duets for two horns were later included only partially in horn-duet anthologies. This edition is the first complete reprint since the original publication. For some of the occasionally very high passages, it is recommended to play the duo on horn in D or C, since Chiapparelli did not specify a particular crook (pitch) for the horn.
No. 1 Marcia