A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Brunetti, Gaetano

BRUNETTI, Gaetano, a violin-player and composer, was born at Pisa in 1753. He was a pupil first of his father, an able musician, and afterwards of the celebrated Nardini at Florence, whose style of playing and composing he adopted with considerable success. The greater part of his life he spent at Madrid, attached to the court of the Prince of Asturias, afterwards Charles IV. Here he came into close connection with Boccherini, then at the height of his fame as a performer and composer, and appears gradually to have superseded that artist in the favour of the court and the public. With the symphonies, serenades, and other instrumental works which he wrote for the King and the Duke of Alba he was eminently successful. They appear to be very much in the style of Boccherini; but on the whole inferior to the works of that master. Brunetti died at Madrid in 1808. His numerous compositions—published at Paris—consist of symphonies, serenades, sextets, quintets, and violin-duets. Over 200 works of his remain in MS.

[ P. D. ]