Gaetano Gaspari

Gaetano Gaspari (Bologna, 1807 – Bologna, 1881) was an Italian musicologist, bibliographer and composer whose reputation rests above all on the organisation of his native city's musical heritage. His importance lies in the cataloguing work he carried out at the Liceo Musicale in Bologna, an institution of which he eventually became a key figure.

Trained between 1820 and 1827 under Benedetto Donelli at the Liceo Musicale, he won prizes in piano and counterpoint. Between 1824 and 1827 he was organist at San Martino in Bologna and, from 1828 to 1836, he directed the municipal orchestra and served as maestro di cappella at the Collegiata of Pieve di Cento. In 1836 he took up the same post at the cathedral of Imola. Three years later, his former teacher, who was ill, summoned him back to Bologna to succeed him at the Liceo and as director of the chapel of San Petronio. However, apparently owing to circumstances linked to the reorganisation of the Liceo, in which Rossini then exercised effective control, and to local opposition, he was prevented from taking up that post, a decision many regard as unjust. He first worked as chorus master at the Teatro Comunale and then obtained the post of solfeggio teacher at the Liceo. In 1856 he finally secured the position of librarian and professor of music history, and in 1857 he was appointed maestro di cappella of San Petronio. He was also a member of the Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna.

Gaspari was esteemed as a composer of liturgical music, although his greatest contribution is scholarly. He published numerous studies on the musical history of Bologna, especially between 1869 and 1880, in journals of historical societies in Bologna and Modena. His most acclaimed achievement was classifying the valuable holdings of the Liceo library, which he helped to build and indexed in a manuscript known as the Zibaldone musicale, the basis of the catalogue published from 1890 onwards. His collected writings were published in 1969 under the title Musica e musicisti a Bologna.