Symphonies in D minor, A major, in D major, F major.

Abstract

LUIGI BOCCHERINI (B. LUCCA, 1743: D. MADRID, 1805) SETTLED IN Spain a! At end of1768 and apparently never again change his country of residence. TIJC most reticent personality of his arrogant generation, he was, nonetheless, one of the most originalfigures of his lime. Deeply marked by the Spanish character, its uusic and its people, its geography and its culture, "Don Luis ", the most typical of Spanish rococo composers, mas a sensitive and profoundly intuitive man, whose music VIS, in the words of his contemporaries, capable of transporting one "to a mysterious abode where you experienced unknown and magical sounds" (ChenedoM, 1805). A thoroughly well educated composer and a virtuosic violoncellist, Boccherini incarnates the happy conjunction of variousfactors which, together with bis inherent pirns, resulted in the creation of a musicalproduction that could never be imitated: wits to Italy, Vienna, Paris and Madridfor study purposes;fruitfulrelationships with G.B. Sammartini, Gossec, and the violinists, Manfredi, Nardini and Camhini, with whom he formed a prodigious quartet, and, above all, the geographic isolation that, from the age of 25, kept him relatively apart from the important centres of musical activity, although bis own music enjoyed an extremely widespread diffusion. Boccherini was underrated, not to say forgotten, by the troubled romantic century to which his lucid works could have contributed so much. He was an unquestionable master of chamber music (Ijis 125 string quintets have never been surpassed), hut did not consider his contribution to symphonic music as secondary although he only applied himself to il at irregular intervals and with less intensity than to his chamber music. Little known as a master of the symphony, Boccherini assiduously cultivated his personal idiosyncratic qualities, like "Domingo Escarlali" had done, while assimilating the invigorating properties of the sources of Spanish music. The Utile Symphony in D major, the first of them all, and the only one composed outside Spain, is the most representative of Boccherini'sfirst style and of the Milanese influence of Sammartini. It is a typically Italian symphony with its characteristic two viola-parts in the orchestra; It is, in fact, the overture lo the cantata, La Confedera-zione dei Sabini con Roma, composed in 1765 at Lucca, who commissioned the work. Il was used again the sameyearas the overture to his oratorio, II Giuseppe rico-nosciuto.