Benedetto Carulli

Benedetto Carulli (1797–1877) was an Italian clarinettist, composer and teacher closely associated with the Milan Conservatory and La Scala. Trained at the conservatory, he subsequently taught there for almost half a century. His pupils included Ernesto Cavallini and Romeo Orsi. At La Scala he belonged to a wind quartet with Giuseppe Rabboni, Carlo Yvon and Antonio Cantù.

His music includes operatic fantasies and arrangements on themes by Verdi, Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini, clarinet duets, trios, variations and other works for wind instruments. These compositions reflect the nineteenth-century practice of bringing operatic repertoire into domestic music-making, teaching and chamber concerts.

The Carulli family’s publishing business

On 22 November 1822 Giuseppe Antonio Carulli (1762–1830), a music copyist at the Milan Conservatory, applied on behalf of his son Luigi for a licence to print music. He described himself as a native of Assago, near Milan, aged sixty and with four children. Luigi had already been working as a music engraver and printer, while Benedetto was a professor of clarinet at the conservatory.

The licence was granted on 4 January 1823. For several years, as Editore dell’Imperiale Regio Conservatorio of Milan, Giuseppe Antonio issued works by conservatory teachers and former pupils, together with teaching material, especially vocal and keyboard tutors. In 1827 he began the Nuovo repertorio musicale: Produzioni dei più accreditati maestri ridotte per organo e pianoforte; twenty-four instalments had appeared by 1830. In 1828, with plate number 167, his address was given as S. Radegonda 984. Plate number 173 marked the beginning of the Collezione completa di Muzio Clementi, based on Breitkopf & Härtel’s edition.

Carulli worked with Secondo Colombo in 1829 and began a new series, the Biblioteca musicale economica per flauto, organo e pianoforte, the following year. After Giuseppe Antonio’s death, Benedetto requested the transfer of the publishing licence, which was granted on 11 June 1830; his activity in this field lasted less than a year. In 1832 Ricordi acquired the Carulli catalogue of approximately 300 publications, entering them under the numbers 6113–6161 and 6225–6339. Four years later Giovanni Canti began publishing by reprinting several Carulli editions, notably the Muzio Clementi collection.