Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805): Chamber Music

00:00 Sinfonia Concertante in G major: Andantino amoroso - Minuetto con trio - Finale: Allegro vivo
13:21 Trio No. 5 in C major, Op. 35: Largo - Allegro vivace - Variazioni: Andante lento *
29:18 Sextet in E flat major, Op. 41: Andante lento - Allegro ma non presto - Tempo di minuetto
38:45 Trio No. 6 in E major, Op. 35: Allegro giusto - Largheto - Minuetto - Rondó: Andante un poco lento *

London Baroque Ensemble, conducted by Karl Haas
* Walter Schneiderhan & Gustav Swoboda, violins / Senta Benesch, violoncello

Arte: Carlos III comiendo ante su corte (c1775), por Luis Paret y Alcázar (1746-1799)

The witty phrase ¨Boccherini is the wife of Haydn¨, attributed to the violinist Puppo, has forever classified Boccherini as a somewhat milder alter ego of the Father of the Symphony. But historically as well as stylistically, this description is inept. Boccherini’s music is the manifestation of Italian instrumental song; Haydn’s music is the product of superb organization of musical elements. Boccherini’s works are based on the formula of accompanied melody; Haydn’s creations are conceived contrapuntally. Haydn initiated an area and a school of composition; Boccherini was an isolated talent with no disciples or followers. To an academic mind, Boccherini was little more than an amateur; when Spohr heard one of Boccherini’s quintets, he said brusquely: “This is not music.”

This is not to say that Boccherini was not held in high esteem by his contemporaries. Gerber, in his music dictionary, published in 1790 under the characteristically long-winded title, Historico-Biographical Lexicon of Tone-Artists, Which Contains Information on the Life and Works of Musical Writers, Famous Composers, Singers, Masters of Instruments, Dilettanti, and Makers of Organs and Instruments, describes Boccherini in a supremely laudatory article, which says: “Boccherini is one of the greatest living Italian composers of instrumental music. No other Italian can utilize the “treasure of harmony as Boccherini does; no other can traverse the field of modulation with so much freedom and ease. And withal, how fluid, how poignant is his song! Despite the great number of works he wrote, Boccherini remains ever new and almost inexhaustible in his invention. Will it add to his fame that, as we know, Boccherini maintains a friendly correspondence with our own Haydn? And it seems that, indeed, Haydn is the only composer whom we Germans can oppose to this Italian, this great all-embracing genius.”

It is interesting to note that Gerber’s appreciation of Mozart in the same dictionary was less enthusiastic. In the entry on Mozart, who was still living at the time Gerber’s dictionary appeared, we find this statement: “Mozart’s harmony is so profound that it falls hard on untrained ears. Even the learned must hear his pieces many times in succession to appreciate them.”

A French writer, contemporary of Boccherini, in his expression of admiration, asserted that Boccherini’s music always tells of human emotion: “A young man had just played a melody from Boccherini’s Quintet. The bow fell from his hands and he exclaimed: ‘This is the first outburst of anguish of Ariadne, when she is abandoned on the island of Naxos.’ Boccherini’s music is enchanting. He captivates us in a rapt atmosphere of music; he puts us in a mysterious residence where you hear unknown and magic sounds. It is like listening to melodious poems, like breathing the air filled with the most exquisite perfumes. The themes have something that is dreamed, that transports the soul on an enchanted voyage. Boccherini rocks us and lulls us to delight. He is more intoxicating than Haydn. He is the Racine of Music.”

With the passing of the sentimental eighteenth century, Boccherini’s muse faded somewhat. Mendelssohn referred to him as a perruque, a survival of the wigged gentry. But there were, throughout the nineteenth century, warm re-appraisals of the good old Italian. The Frenchman L. Picquot, in his standard biography of Boccherini, published in 1851, assigns to Boccherini a place in history as a forerunner of the greats: “It is the torch of this admirable genius that illumined the unknown paths followed, in a step so firm and so assured, by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.”

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In popular circles, the name of Boccherini is synonymous with the celebrated Minuet, which is a movement from one of Boccherini’s 124 string quintets. His enormous output contains besides, twelve piano quintets, eighteen quintets for woodwind instruments and strings; forty-eight trios for two violins and violoncello, twelve trios for violin, viola, and violoncello, ninety-one string quartets, sixteen sextets, two octets, six duos for two violins, twenty-one sonatas for violin and piano, six sonatas for violoncello and bass, six sonatas for violin and bass, four concertos for violoncello and orchestra, and twenty symphonies. He also wrote an opera, and many works for voices. Only an inconsiderable part of his total production of instrumental music is available in full score; most of it was published in separate parts, and many works still await publication.

Boccherini’s life was one of travel in search of patrons. Throughout the musical centuries, Italian musicians have emigrated to distant lands which had fewer composers per square kilometer than the over-rich land of Italy. Boccherini was born in Lucca on February 19, 1743 (the date, January 14, 1740, given in early biographies, is wrong); he studied the violoncello, and toured in France playing duos with the violinist Manfredi. In 1769 he settled in Madrid as chamber musician to the future King of Spain.

He next found favor at the Court of Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia, where he spent ten fruitful years. Later he basked under the sun of Bonapartist France, where his protector was Lucien Bonaparte, Napoleon’s brother. When Lucien Bonaparte was appointed ambassador to Spain in 1800, Boccherini followed him. He died in Madrid on May 28, 1805, in extreme poverty.

The first work on this record is the Sinfonia Concertante for oboe, horn, bassoon, two violins, viola and two cellos in G major. The first movement, marked Andantino amoroso, starts with a graceful melody for the oboe and is followed by the second subject for horn and bassoon. Then some lively passages for the first violin and first cello lead to a bridge passage of the oboe followed by the bassoon leading back to the first subject (coda). The movement then is followed by an episodic quasi development in E Minor, and after this the Andantino amoroso is repeated da capo: the whole movement therefore is a mixture of sonata and rondo form.

The second movement of the Sinfonia Concertante is a Minuet and a most remarkable one at that. Though Boccherini became known by his attractive minuet of the String Quintet in E Major, he wrote here a very much more attractive and interesting piece. The movement starts pianissimo on an up-beat of four semi-quavers on the dominant seventh; in the sixth bar we see the happy return to the tonic in G. The second half of the minuet shows very effective solo writing for horn, bassoon, viola and first violin. The trio starts off with a G Minor melody for bassoon with a counter subject for viola accompanied by the two cellos. The second part with the oboe melody starts off in B Flat Major and after its return to the G Minor tune of the bassoon, the trio ends on the dominant D and then the minuet is taken up da capo. The third movement or Finale: Allegro vivo fluctuates between tonic and dominant harmonies, bringing the work to a cheerful conclusion.

In the Sextet in E flat major, Op. 41 for oboe, bassoon, horn, violin, viola and double bass, the first movement, Andante Lento, shows already in its first bars that the composer is thoroughly at home with this unusual combination of instruments. The entry of the horn in the fourth bar gives the whole beginning a warmth which prevails throughout this cantabile movement. The second movement is in sonata form and full of scintillating passages for all the instruments. The last movement is a minuet-trio. In the second part of this minuet the horn plays a tune which could be either by Weber or Rossini. The trio is in C Minor and the bassoon is the main solo instrument.

Symbolic of Bocherini’s poetic mildness in his music, are the frequent indications, pianissimo, sotto voce assai, and the like in his scores. Boccherini’s instrumental music is literally “chamber music, ” to be played in a small room. His Trios op. 35, composed in 1781, are typical examples of Boccherini’s art of perfection and balance, serenity and formal symmetry, and above all, simple melodiousness of musical speech. There are six Trios in all in this opus number, scored for two violins and a violoncello. (It was the custom of the eighteenth century to publish collections of six numbers in one album.) Trio No. 5 in C major contains three movements: Largo; Allegro Vivace; and Variazione (Andante lento). Trio No. 6 in E major contains Allegro giusto; Larghetto; Minuetto and Rondó.

NICOLAS SLONIMSKY

Westminster (XWN 18052) 1955