Release Date: 12 January 1999
Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 4891030505520
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: BOCCHERINI
Description
Luigi Boccherini (1743 -1805)Quintets for Guitar and String Quartet Vol. 2 Quintet in D Major, G. 448 Quintet in D Major, G. 449 Quintet in G Major, G. 450 The Italian cellist and composer Luigi Boccherini was born in Lucca in1743, the son of a double-bass player. His family was distinguished not on I yin music, but boasted poets and dancers among its members. His eider brotherGiovan Gastone, born in 1742, was both dancer and poet, the author of the textof Haydn's Il ritorno di Tobia andthe libretti of some earlier stage-works of the Vienna Court Composer, AntonioSalieri. His sister Maria Ester was a dancer and married Onorato Vigan??, adistinguished dancer and choreographer. Her son, Salvatore Vigano, who studiedcomposition with Boccherini, occupies a position of considerable importance inthe history of ballet. Boccherini was giving concerts as a cellist by the age of thirteen, andin 1757 went with his father to Vienna, where they both were invited to jointhe orchestra of the court theatre. Boccherini returned to Italy, but therewere further visits to Vienna, before he finally secured a position in hisnative town. In 1766, however, he set out with his fellow-townsman, theviolinist Manfredi, a pupil of Nardini, for Paris, having performed with bothviolinists and with Cambini in chamber music in Milan the previous year.In France Boccherini and Manfredi won considerable success, and theformer continued his work as a composer, as well as appearing as a cellovirtuoso. In 1768 the pair left for Spain, where Boccherini seems to have liveduntil his death in 1805. In Madrid he was appointed composer and virtuoso decamera to the Infante Don Luis, younger brother of King Charles III. Part ofthe following period he spent in Madrid and part at the Palace of Las Arenas inthe province of Avila, where the Infante retired after an unacceptablemarriage. Members of the Font family were employed by Don Luis as a stringquartet and renewed their association with Boccherini at the end of the century.After the death of the Infante in 1785 the composer entered the service of theBenavente-Osuna family. At the same time he was appointed court composer toFriedrich Wilhelm, who in 1787 became King of Prussia, providing thecello-playing king with new compositions on the same kind of exclusivearrangement that he had earlier enjoyed with Don Luis. There is, however, noevidence that Boccherini ever spent any time in Prussia. After the death ofFriedrich Wilhelm and the departure of other patrons from Madrid, Boccherinireceived support from Lucien Bonaparte, French ambassador in Madrid, andremained busy to the end of his life, although visitors reported that he livedin all the appearance of poverty.Boccherini's style is completely characteristic of the period in whichhe lived, the period, that is, of Haydn rather than that of Mozart orBeethoven. He enjoyed a reputation for his facility as a composer, leaving some467 compositions. A great deal of his music is designed to exploit t
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
