Little is known about Capuzzi's education as a violinist and composer. However, his multifaceted talent must have been recognized early on as he was sent to Venice to study violin with Antonio Nazari and composition with Ferdinando Bertoni, the Kapellmeister of St. Mark's Cathedral.
Capuzzi's talents were able to develop particularly well in the music metropolis of Venice with its many churches; each of which maintained its own orchestra, opera, ballet and public concerts comparable to the Paris "Concerts spirituels". After Capuzzi had established himself as a violin virtuoso in Venice from about 1775, he was appointed concertmaster of the theaters of San Samuele, San Benedetto and San Moisè in 1780. From 1785 he was a member of the chapel of St. Mark's Cathedral. From 1792, he held the post of first violinist of the newly opened opera La Fenice.
Capuzzi's fame enabled him not only to travel to all the major Italian cities but also to stay in Vienna and London (1796). After the occupation of Venice by Napoleon's troops in May 1797 and the political end of the Republic of Venice, Capuzzi's close friend, the teacher and composer Johann Simon Mayr, moved to Bergamo. In 1805 he was also able to persuade Capuzzi to come to Bergamo to appoint him as concertmaster and director of the court orchestra of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore and the orchestra of the Teatro Riccardi. Mayr's main intention, however, was to engage Capuzzi as a teacher at the Lezioni Caritatevoli di Musica school he had founded which he ultimately succeeded in doing. Thanks to teachers such as Francesco Salari, Antonio Gonzales and Capuzzi, Lezioni became one of the most important schools in the country and produced such artistic personalities as Antonio Piatti, Marco Bonesi, Carlo Antonio Zanetti and Gaetano Donizetti.
Capuzzi remained in Bergamo and died there as a highly respected violin virtuoso, teacher and composer on March 28, 1818; nine days after he suffered a stroke or heart attack in the middle of a concert at Santa Maria Maggiore.
(Source: wikipedia.org, (09/11/2020)
Note: Translated from the German version of Wikipedia into English
