Release Date: 08 January 2001
Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 747313504220
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: BOCCHERINI
Description
The Italian cellist and composer Luigi Boccherini was born in Lucca in 1743, the son of a double-bass player. His family was distinguished not only in music but also boasted poets and dancers among its members. His elder brother Giovanni Gastone, born in 1742, was both dancer and poet, the author of the text of Haydn’s Il ritorno di Tobia and of the libretti of some earlier stage works of the Vienna court composer, Antonio Salieri. He later became official poet of the Coliseo de los Caños del Peral in Madrid, a theatre to the concerts in which Boccherini had contributed music. His sister Maria Ester was a dancer and married Onorato Viganò, a distinguished dancer and choreographer. Her son, Salvatore Viganò, who studied composition with Boccherini, occupies a position of considerable importance in the history of ballet.By the age of thirteen Boccherini was appearing in concerts as a cellist. In 1757 he went with his father and older brother and sister to Venice and Trieste and the following year he appeared with his father in Vienna, where they were both invited to join the orchestra of the Théâtre-Allemand, returning to Vienna for two further seasons in 1760-1761 and 1763-1764. In the intervening periods he appeared in Lucca and in Florence. In 1764 Boccherini succeeded in achieving appointment as a cellist in the Cappella Palatina in Lucca and undertook engagements in Padua and Cremona, among other places. In 1766 he joined with his fellow-townsman, the violinist Manfredi, leader of the Cappella Palatina, the latter’s teacher Nardini and the composer and viola-player Cambini in serious study and performance of the quartets of Haydn and of Boccherini’s own early quartets, and after the death of his father in August of that year he went with Manfredi to Genoa, where he seems to have composed at least one of his two oratorios for the Oratorians. In the autumn of 1767 he set out from Genoa with Manfredi, with the intention of travelling to London, staying first in Nice and then for some six months in Paris, where they won considerable success. Here Boccherini’s first set of six string quartets was published, and sets of string trios. In France Boccherini and Manfredi won considerable success and Boccherini himself also continued his work as a composer, in addition to his performances as a virtuoso. In 1768 the pair left for Spain, appearing first at court with an Italian opera company. Establishing himself in Madrid, Boccherini was appointed composer and virtuoso di camera to the Infante Don Luis, younger brother of King Carlos III, after a cooler reception from the King and the Prince of the Asturias, his heir. Part of the following period he spent in Madrid and part at the Palace of Las Arenas in the province of Avila, where the Infante retired after a morganatic marriage. Members of the Font family were employed by the Prince as a string quartet, for which Boccherini wrote quartets and with wh
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Various
Various
Lully
