Release Date: 12 January 1999
Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 4891030507319
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: BOCCHERINI
Description
Luigi Boccherini (1743 - 1805)Guitar Quintets Vol. 3The 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 boasted poets and dancers among its members. His eider brother GiovanGastone, born in 1742, was both dancer and poet, the authorof the text ofHaydn's Il ritorno di Tobia and the libretti of some earlier stage-worksof the Vienna Court Composer, Antonio Salieri. His sister Maria Ester was adancer and married Onorato Vigano, a distinguished dancer and choreographer. Herson, Salvatore Vigano, who studied composition with Boccherini, occupies aposition of considerable importance in the history of ballet.Boccherini was giving concerts as a cellist by the age of thirteen, and in1757 went with his father to Vienna, where they were both invited to join theorchestra of the court theatre. Boccherini returned to Italy, but there werefurther visits to Vienna, before he finally secured a position in his nativetown. In 1766, however, he set out with his fellow-townsman, the violinistManfredi, a pupil of Nardini, for Paris, having performed with both violinistsand with Cambini in chamber music in Milan the previous year.In France Boccherini and Manfredi won considerable success, and the formercontinued his work as a composer, as well as appearing as a cello virtuoso. In1768 the pair left for Spain, where Boccherini seems to have lived until hisdeath in 1805. In Madrid he was appointed composer and virtuoso de camera to theInfante Don Luis, younger brother of King Charles III. Part of the followingperiod he spent in Madrid and part at the Palace of Las Arenas in the provinceof Avila, where the Infante retired after an unacceptable marriage. Members ofthe Font family were employed by Don Luis as a string quartet and renewed theirassociation with Boccherini at the end of the century. After the death of theInfante in 1785 the composer entered the service of the Benavente-Osuna family.At the same time he was appointed court composer to Friedrich Wilhelm, who in1787 became King of Prussia, providing the cello-playing king with newcompositions on the same kind of exclusive arrangement that he had earlierenjoyed with Don Luis. There is, however, no evidence that Boccherini ever spentany time in Prussia. After the death of Friedrich Wilhelm and the departure ofother patrons from Madrid, Boccherini received support from Lucien Bonaparte,French ambassador in Madrid, and remained busy to the end of his life, althoughvisitors reported that he lived in all the appearance of poverty.Boccherini's style is completely characteristic of the period in which helived, the period, that is, of Haydn rather than that of Mozart or Beethoven. Heenjoyed a reputation for his facility as a composer, leaving some 467compositions. A great deal of his music is designed to exploit the technicalresources of the cello, in concertos, sonatas, and, particularly, in chambermusic for various n
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
