‘Boccherini’s adagios excite the admiration of connoisseurs and the despair of fellow artists; they give one an idea of the music of the angels.’
from the Dictionnaire historique des musiciens (1810-11)
by Alexandre-Étienne Choron and François-Joseph-Marie Fayolle

Luigi Boccherini—is it just association, or does the name itself emanate a sense of magical refinement? Whichever, the music certainly conveys that impression, to an extraordinary extent; has there ever been a composer of more consistent elegance? No matter how impassioned the mood, how martial and dramatic, or how tender, Boccherini’s art is always attired in sumptuous clothing, radiating grace. Unlike his near-contemporary Joseph Haydn, Boccherini rarely seeks to shock; he prefers instead to create for his players and listeners a sphere of ideal beauty, of sophisticated sentiments—and in that he succeeded like no other. Compared to both Mozart and Haydn, he may seem somewhat innocent, almost naive; but that is a misleading impression—he is merely different. They, pursuing much of their careers at the centre of musical life in Vienna, were of this world; Boccherini, who spent more than half of his life in far-off Spain, inhabited his own, idyllic realm of the senses. In the well-known words of the French publication quoted above: ‘If God wanted to speak to man through music, he would do so through the works of Haydn; if, however, he wished to listen to music himself, he would choose the works of Boccherini.’

It is perhaps in part because of his unworldliness that Boccherini’s reputation has never really matched his achievements—even now. It is true that he has always had his fans (including, interestingly, Chopin, whose use of sonata form noticeably resembles that of Boccherini); but until surprisingly recently, the only two Boccherini works that were heard regularly in the concert hall are the ‘Minuet in F’ (actually in A, from a quintet in E), played in various arrangements, and his cello concerto in B flat—in a (for me, anyway) ghastly Victorian version that bears very little resemblance to Boccherini’s original. It is fair to say, in fact, that it is only within the last fifty years or so that any of his approximately 600 works have been heard in versions that he would have recognized—and then all too rarely. Hard to believe, but true. Even today, it can be difficult to find faithful editions of his music; but at least there are such editions now available. And what treasures have been rediscovered!

A very brief biography: Ridolfo Luigi Boccherini was born in Lucca, Italy, in 1743, into an artistic family. His father, Leopoldo, was a double bassist, cellist and singer, while three of his siblings were dancers. Under the guidance of his father, Luigi’s talent manifested itself early, and—perhaps as early as age eleven—he was sent to Rome to study. Following his return to Lucca in 1756, Boccherini’s career started to blossom, partly thanks to the support given to him, pleasingly, by the director of music at the town’s main church, one Giacomo Puccini—great-great-grandfather of Lucca’s other most beloved musical son. From the age of fourteen, Boccherini started to tour widely as a concert artist, giving solo performances as well as playing in various orchestras (in some of which his father played the bass). Following the death of Leopoldo in 1766, Luigi left Lucca for ever, spending some time in Paris before arriving in Spain in 1768. From 1770 until his patron died in 1785, Boccherini was employed as composer, director of music and cellist at the court of the Infante Don Luis, brother of the King of Spain. Perhaps even more prestigiously, he was from 1786 to 1797 Chamber Composer to King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia, nephew of Frederick the Great. Like his uncle, who had been a keen amateur flautist, Friedrich Wilhelm encouraged composers to write for his chosen instrument, in this case the cello; it was he who was responsible for the prominent cello parts in Mozart’s last quartets, and for Beethoven’s first two cello sonatas. For his new benefactor, Boccherini composed reams of quintets featuring two cellos (a genre in which he had started to specialize some years earlier). Curiously, his employment was a long-distance one; Boccherini seems never to have visited the court in Potsdam, nor to have met his admiring employer. Boccherini remained in Spain for the rest of his life, in fact, working for a variety of patrons, until he died in Madrid in 1805. Married twice, he had fathered seven children—but sadly, both his wives and six of his children pre-deceased him.

Turning away from this melancholy note, we can (hopefully) cheer ourselves by passing on to the six works on this album—incorporating a wide, if subtle, range of emotions, forms and textures. From concertos to sonatas to chamber music: each piece unmistakably conveys Boccherini’s unique voice—and yet, the more one gets to know them, the more noticeable are the differences between each piece in this collection.

To begin with the concertos: Boccherini’s cello concertos, some twelve in number, were written comparatively early in his career, all dating from the years during which he toured as a virtuoso. And by the way: what a virtuoso! Presuming that he could play his own music—which I think is a fair presumption—he must have been a truly wonderful player; one can feel it in the writing, as challenging as anything composed for the cello before the twentieth century, at least. (The great Russian cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, an avid Boccheriniphile, considered Boccherini to have been, on the evidence of his music, the greatest cellist of all time.) The concerto in D, G479, one of a set of four concertos published in Paris in 1770, displays this virtuosity to a remarkable extent. (Boccherini’s works, grouped by genre rather than arranged chronologically, were catalogued in the late 1960s by the great French musicologist Yves Gérard—hence the G numbers.) More than any other work on this album, it gives us, from the soloist’s first notes, a clear idea of Boccherini the concert performer: the cello enters at a strikingly high register, almost violin-like, with a bold theme that combines a singing quality with filigree ornamentation; much of the writing in this movement requires the soloist to dance nimbly at the top of the instrument. In contrast, however, Boccherini then gives us a slow movement that is in all but words an operatic aria for the cello; the resulting pathos is firmly—if never rudely—broken by horn calls (on violins), announcing a finale of refined brilliance.

One can imagine that this concerto, at least from the soloist’s entry, must have provided a wholly new musical experience for Boccherini’s audiences—not least through the extraordinary orchestration of the solo passages, in which the cello is accompanied by violins only (presumably intended for one player per part, as performed here). This ultra-light scoring is a feature of many of the concertos. Perhaps it was purely for practical reasons: it’s possible that Boccherini was, at least on occasion, the only cellist in the group performing the concertos; in that case he would have been unable, of course, to provide the bass line at the same time as playing the solo part. This would have left him faced with a dilemma. The double bass would probably have sounded too low to provide a satisfying foundation for the harmony—and perhaps Boccherini didn’t trust his violist’s intonation! At any rate, the resulting effect, with the cello often inhabiting the same stratosphere as the violins, is remarkably translucent and ethereal—truly ‘music of the angels’.

The other concerto on this recording, in A major, G475, known as ‘The Frog’ because of the leaping intervals of one of the soloist’s thematic passages in the finale (from 0’40), seems to date from Boccherini’s earlier years. (Actually, I confess: it hasn’t yet been known as ‘The Frog’—or as anything else, in fact, as far as I know, but I do think that those passages in the finale sound like a frog. And I’m curious to know whether giving a nickname to a little-known work such as this concerto might (deservedly) increase its popularity. I want to see, in short, whether this nickname has legs …) Maybe it was even the concerto concerning which Puccini senior noted in his diary on 4 August 1756 that he had paid Boccherini for giving three performances ‘the day after the first Psalm, and then to oblige me, at Mass and Vespers’. Or if that is too early for such a mature work, perhaps it is the concerto ‘in a completely new style’ (according to a contemporary report) which he played in Florence on 19 March 1761, at the age of eighteen. Possibly related, the only early source for the work is to be found today in Florence—albeit a copy rather than an original manuscript (including a cadenza which, uninspired as it is, cannot be, in my opinion, the work of the composer—just as the cadenzas found in the manuscript of Haydn’s cello concerto in C are definitely not Haydn’s). Given the lack of a source in Boccherini’s hand, and the fact that it was published only after his death, the concerto’s authenticity was questioned for a time; but since the material of the first movement is recycled in one of Boccherini’s cello sonatas (G13, also in A), we can be pretty sure that it is genuine. Besides, it has much in common with his other concertos, including its companion on this album: the same delicate refinement of orchestration (although the tuttis here include two optional horns), similar cantabile writing for the cello, and the instantly recognizable, understated humour that is so much part of Boccherini’s musical personality. If this early work does not quite display the perfect mastery of the other works on this recording, it is certainly worth hearing, its many beauties easily outweighing any trifling imperfections.

And so to the sonatas: Boccherini left us around thirty sonatas, almost all for ‘cello e basso’—i.e. solo part plus bass line; this could imply either cello and keyboard continuo, (possibly) cello and double bass, or two cellos. (There is no cello sonata by Boccherini with an independent, equal keyboard role—perhaps surprisingly, since his violin sonatas Op 5, written in the 1790s, contain brilliant parts for the keyboard. For an equal cello/piano sonata, the cello (and piano) would have to wait for Beethoven.) For a time, the double bass was the favoured probability, since that would have allowed Boccherini senior to accompany his son in concerts; but actually, the writing of the second part invariably lies within the normal range of a cello—so that, unfortunately, makes the charming father-and-son vignette less likely (unless Leopoldo took up his cello again, of course—conceivable but unlikely, since he was much better known as a bassist). The knowledge that the sonatas were almost certainly intended for two cellos, however, by no means precludes the possibility of performing them with bass, guitar or keyboard accompaniment (with or without a second cello); it is a matter of choice. At first, in fact, I intended to record both the present sonatas with harpsichord—I love the combination; but, in getting to know the F major sonata (which I learned especially for this album), I realized that a second cello would be much more appropriate here, because of the strikingly idiomatic cello-writing in the accompanying part. (Incidentally, I can provide no historical justification for my decision in some movements to do the first repeat only, and in others to dispense with them altogether—I just prefer it that way. Apologies to repeat purists …)

All of Boccherini’s cello sonatas are presumed, like his concertos, to have been written during his touring years. Each sonata seems to me rather like a mini-opera, with its own very personal story to tell. The C minor, with its arresting chordal opening, is certainly the more tragic of the two sonatas presented here. (There are two existing versions of this C minor sonata—a heavily ornamented edition, known to its friends as G2; and this one, G2b. Even though I have a slightly uneasy feeling that the more elaborate version could conceivably be closer to Boccherini’s own performance, I prefer the simpler G2b, which seems to me ornate enough already, and with a clearer melodic line. So the answer to the question 2b or not 2b is definitively—for me—2b. If only Hamlet had known …) There is a strength, a sense of drama, that differentiates it from the sunnier world of the concertos; what binds them together, however, is the marvellously melodic writing for the cello—nobody can make the cello sing as Boccherini did! The F major sonata is altogether gentler—though not without its moments of cantabile pathos. It is perhaps not fanciful to hear in both sonatas a love story, replete with dialogues and arias, combined with courtly dances which by no means impair the romantic atmosphere. Indeed, the last movement of the F major sonata is adorned with the unusual title ‘minuetto amoroso’.

Boccherini could be said to have owned the genre of the quintet with two cellos (until Schubert came along, at least), composing well over 100 of them. As mentioned earlier, a huge number were written for the court of King Friedrich Wilhelm; but the one we have chosen, G280 (although answering additionally, rather puzzlingly, to the names of both Op 13 No 4 and Op 20 No 4), was written in the early 1770s, well before Boccherini came into contact with the Prussian monarch. It is another work of quiet but unmistakable originality, with notable features including the ardent nature of the opening lament, passed between the cellos and accompanied by birdlike trills—a favourite device of Boccherini; in the heartfelt andante sostenuto, an unexpected cadenza for the second cello; and—perhaps most strikingly—a last movement in the form of a fugue, perfectly worked out while remaining firmly within Boccherini’s world of Italianate lyricism.

Finally—a built-in encore. I know that I complained at the beginning of this note that Boccherini’s ‘Minuet in F’ was practically his only popular work, over-played and over-arranged (and irredeemably associated, for those of a certain generation, with the classic Ealing comedy film The Ladykillers). But … it really is a gem—subtle and perfect. Pure Boccherini, in fact.

Steven Isserlis © 2024