The score was discovered by William Limonta and Michele Enrico Poli during the cataloguing and survey of the musical collections of the Diocese
Its first modern performance will take place on November 29, the anniversary of the composer’s birth (Dies Natalis), at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, performed by the Cappella Musicale as part of the Donizetti Opera festival 2026
The Diocese of Bergamo and the Donizetti Theatre Foundation announces the discovery of an unpublished autograph composition by Gaetano Donizetti in the Historical Archive of the Library of the “Giovanni XXIII” Episcopal Seminary in Bergamo. The discovery, made on February 24, 2026, was the result of the work of musicologist William Limonta and local historian and archivist Michele Enrico Poli, within the framework of a project to catalogue the musical collections of the Diocese of Bergamo, coordinated by the Diocesan Historical Archive.
The composition is preserved in the institution’s Music Collection, a collection that had never previously been examined or catalogued, consisting of more than 860 items, including manuscript and printed music dating from the early nineteenth century to the final decades of the twentieth century.
The newly discovered Donizetti work, comprising four folios, sets to music the text of the Psalm Dixit, divided into its individual verses, through a simple yet effective musical language, consistent with the stylistic traits of the young composer.
Written for three male voices a cappella (two tenors and one bass), the piece has been dated to the period between 1818 and 1821, when Donizetti, having returned from his studies in Bologna under Father Stanislao Mattei, was living in Bergamo, where he established connections with the Pezzoli Grataroli and Quarenghi families in Almenno.
Although the manuscript bears no autograph signature, William Limonta’s intuition that it might be an autograph work by Gaetano Donizetti led to a handwriting analysis carried out by Fabrizio Capitanio, Curator of the Gaetano Donizetti Music Library, and Paolo Fabbri, Scientific Director of the Donizetti Studies Centre of the Donizetti Theatre Foundation. Their examination confirmed both the authorship and the originality of the composition.
On Friday, October 9, at 6:30 p.m., the Bergamo Episcopal Seminary will host a public event retracing the discovery of the score and exploring the composition from both scholarly and musicological perspectives.
The piece will then receive its modern premiere on Sunday, November 29, the Dies Natalis of Gaetano Donizetti, at 10:30 a.m. in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, as part of the initiatives of the Donizetti Opera festival 2026 organized by the Donizetti Theatre Foundation. The performance will be entrusted to the soloists of the Cappella Musicale under the direction of Maestro Cristian Gentilini.
