The Belloli family of horn players has largely been forgotten today. It included Luigi Belloli (1770–1817; other sources give his date of birth as 1 February 1769), his brother Agostino (1778–1839), Giuseppe Belloli (b. 1775) and Luigi's two sons Giovanni (1794 – after 1846) and Giacomo (b. 1795). All of them are documented as horn players in various Italian orchestras. Compositions by Luigi, Agostino and Giuseppe Belloli have survived.
Luigi Belloli first worked as a horn player in Parma and moved to La Scala in Milan in 1803 as principal horn. Besides his orchestral duties, he also taught at the conservatory there until his death in 1817. His brother Agostino succeeded him in these positions.
In his Concerto for Clarinet and Horn, Agostino Belloli still makes use of an older stylistic device, the banda of timpani and trombone. He no longer uses it in his Concerto for Horn (ROM 191). The banda appears far more frequently in the concertos of his brother Luigi, which is probably due in part to the taste of the time.
With horn and clarinet as solo instruments, this work is rather unique: the editor knows of no other concerto in the literature for this combination. The concerto is published here in print for the first time.
