* Admirers of the author of “Don Pasquale” and “Lucia” may be interested in knowing that Donizetti was of Scotch descent.  His grandfather was a native of Perthshire, named Izett.  The young Scot was beguiled by the fascinating tongue of a recruiting-sergeant into his Britannic majesty’s service, and was taken prisoner by General La Hoche during the latter’s invasion of Ireland.  Already tired of a private’s life, he accepted the situation, and was induced to become the French general’s private secretary.  Subsequently he drifted to Italy, and married an Italian lady of some rank, denationalizing his own name into Donizetti.  The Scottish predilections of our composer show themselves in the music of “Don Pasquale,” noticeably in “Com’ e gentil;” and the score of “Lucia” is strongly flavored by Scottish sympathy and minstrelsy.

Receiving a good classical education, the young Gaeetano had three careers open before him:  the bar, to which the will of his father inclined; architecture, indicated by his talent for drawing; and music, to which he was powerfully impelled by his own inclinations.  His father sent him, at the age of seventeen, to Bologna to benefit by the instruction of Padre Mattel, who had also been Rossini’s master.  The young man showed no disposition for the heights of musical science as demanded by religious composition, and, much to his father’s disgust, avowed his determination to write dramatic music.  Paternal anger, for the elder Donizetti seems to have had a strain of Scotch obstinacy and austerity, made the youth enlist as a soldier, thinking to find time for musical work in the leisure of barrack-life.  His first opera, “Enrico di Borgogna,” was so highly admired by the Venetian manager, to whom, it was offered, that he induced friends of his to release young Donizetti from his military servitude.  He now pursued musical composition with a facility and industry which astonished even the Italians, familiar with feats of improvisation.  In ten years twenty-eight operas were produced.  Such names as “Olivo e Pasquale,” “La Convenienze Teatrali,” “Il Borgomaestro di Saardam,” “Gianni di Calais,” “L’Esule di Roma,” “Il Castello di Kenilworth,” “Imelda di Lambertazzi,” have no musical significance, except as belonging to a catalogue of forgotten titles.  Donizetti was so poorly paid that need drove him to rapid composition, which could not wait for the true afflatus.

It was not till 1831 that the evidence of a strong individuality was given, for hitherto he had shown little more than a slavish imitation of Rossini.  “Anna Bolena” was produced at Milan and gained him great credit, and even now, though it is rarely sung even in Italy, it is much respected as a work of art as well as of promise.  It was first interpreted by Pasta and Rubini, and Lablache won his earliest London triumph in it.  “Marino Faliero” was composed for Paris in 1835, and “L’Elisir d’Amore,” one of the most graceful and pleasing of Donizetti’s works, for Milan in 1832.  “Lucia di Lammermoor,” based on Walter Scott’s novel, was given to the public in 1835, and has remained the most popular of the composer’s operas. Edgardo was written for the great French tenor, Duprez, Lucia for Persiani.