Piccola Fantasia for Horn and Orchestra on Motifs by Gaetano Donizetti
First edition
The title of this work, published here in print for the first time, reads as follows in the autograph score: Piccola Fantasia | Per | Corno da Caccia | Sui motivi del Maestro Donizetti | Di | Nicola de Domenico | Collegio, li 15 Maggio 1866
The autograph is held in the library of the Conservatorio di musica San Pietro a Majella in Naples.
Unfortunately, no biographical information could be found about the composer and horn player Nicola de Domenico.
Two compositions by Alfonso Schettino from the same source have already been published by us: ROM 392, a fantasia for horn and orchestra on themes by Mercadante, and ROM 391, on themes from Verdi's Un ballo in maschera (A Masked Ball). Both were written around 1864, two years before de Domenico's fantasia.
Fantasias of this kind were apparently popular in Naples at the time, especially as audition pieces for examinations.
