Boccherini is probably only known for that famous minuet from a String
Quintet in E. But it is not an outstanding piece. There are minuets
just as good as this one!
But he was a prolific and very gifted composer. In my view he was the
first composer to inject a grace into music and write polished music
and move away from virtuosity and showmanship in favour of music as
music having its own intrinsic value.
In his lifetime he enjoyed considerable fame and this continued for
a few decades after his death in 1805. From time to time in the resultant
200 years people took up his music and championed it. Francois Joseph
Fétis in his Biographie Universelle des Musiciens was a 19th
century historian who was not always accurate and was a second rate
composer but he held Boccherini's music in high regard. He honestly
believed that he kept interest in Boccherini's music alive single handed
and lamented what would happen to it when he died.
Boccherini's music suffered at the hands of unscrupulous publishers
during his lifetime and even more so after he died.
As Köchel is to Mozart as to his catalogue of Mozart's music so
Yves Gerard is to Boccherini.
Luigi Boccherini was born on 19th February 1743 in Lucca which was
then the centre of a tiny independent Italian republic. He was the third
of five children fathered by Leopoldo Boccherini a very good double-bass
player. Luigi's musical ability was clear from an early age. He took
lessons from his father and the Abbate Vannucci, choirmaster to the
Archbishop. Luigi's sister, Maria Ester, became an accomplished dancer
and his elder brother Giovanni Gastone was to become a poet and librettist.
He was the author of the text for Haydn's Il Ritorno di Tobia.
Lucca was an impoverished state although musicians were always required
for local functions. Luigi was so gifted that in 1756 or 1757 he was
sent to Rome to study with the distinguished cellist and composer Giovanni
Battista Costanzi who was choirmaster at St Peter's for a year.
Luigi's stay was not long. In 1757 he was back in Lucca where he and
his father were offered posts in the Imperial Court Orchestra in Vienna
which they took and made helpful contacts in the musical world. yet
Luigi could not settle. He was homesick and was soon seeking a position
back in Lucca to where he and his father returned. but there were no
opportunities in Lucca and so they returned to Vienna in 1760 where
Boccherini produced his Opus 1 at the age of seventeen. His first works
were a set of string trios.
And here comes problem number one.
Boccherini gave each new genre the designation Opus 1. His next set
of pieces were some sonatas for cello and double-bass for he and his
father to play . That was a new genre so it was another opus 1. Nowadays
these sonatas are normally played on cello and piano.
The Boccherinis returned to Lucca in 1764 and immersed themselves in
local music making. Luigi revamped two oratorios namely Gioas, Re di
Giudea and Il Giuseppe Riconosciuto both to texts by Metastasio and
his cantata La Confederazione Dei Sabini con Roma commissioned by the
Council of Lucca for the feast of Tasche in 1765.
But there was no money to be earned in Lucca.
Luigi set out for Milan where he encountered the progressive Giovanni
Battista Sammartini, a pioneer of the sonata form and teacher of Gluck.
Luigi also teamed up with Giovanni Giuseppe Cambini, Filippo Manfredi
and Pietro Nardini to form a string quartet which many think was the
first string quartet of all time. This is why he wrote string quartets
and this before Haydn did. Haydn's first quartets dating from 1760 were
really divertimenti and cassations. Boccherini's first set of quartets,
strangely called opus 2, but now known as G 159-164, and they are works
of great importance both musically and historically. They date from
1761 and it is obvious that Haydn used them as models. Only in 1769
with his opus 9 quartets did Haydn write real quartets which are clearly
influenced by Boccherini.
His father having died in 1766, Luigi, having met the great violinist
Manfredi, set out with him on a concert tour of Lombardy and this
led them to Paris where they met great acclaim. Publishers vied with
each other to publish Boccherini's works. And trouble ensued . Nevertheless,
Luigi was welcomed into the houses of leading Parisians. He became the
protege of a certain Baron de Bagge himself an amateur composer and
incompetent performer but he knew all the leading musicians in Paris.
He introduce Luigi to Madame Brillon de Jouy, one of the greatest harpsichord
players of her time and it was for her that he wrote his sonatas for
violin and harpsichord, op 5, now known as G5 -30, which circulated
all over Europe. Manfredi and Boccherini stayed in paris until the
late summer of 1768 and then Boccherini first encountered the Mannheim
style as in the works of such composers as Stamitz, Richter, Holzbauer,
Toeschi and others. This style was all the rage.
But something else changed Boccherini's life.
At the height of his fame in Paris he was invited, along with Manfredi,
to go to Spain by the Spanish Ambassador with the promise of a great
reception that would await them in the court at Madrid. It was a promise
based on hope rather than reality. But the prospect of a permanent and
secure engagement at the Spanish court was attractive. Armed with letters
of recommendation from the Spanish Ambassador the two musicians set
off for Madrid.
The court composer in residence was another Italian, Gaetano Brunetti,
and while he may have received his visitors cordially there was no response
from the King of Spain. It may be that Brunetti, out of professional
jealous and alarm for his own future may have prevailed on the king
and his heir the Prince of Asturias not to employ the new arrivals.
Boccherini tried. He wrote his third set of trios (G89-94) to attempt
to gain royal attention. But to no avail.
In the meantime Manfredi had secured a position in the orchestra of
the king's brother, the Infante, Don Luis. It is almost certainly due
to Manfredi's good offices that , eventually, in November 1770, Boccherini
secured a post in this household having previously dedicated a set of
string Quartets (G165-170) to the Infante.
Boccherini wrote more quartets dedicated to those who love music in
Madrid. This further set of six quartets are known as G171-176.
The composer could now settle down to a life of security and relative
affluence. He was probably paid more than most of the Prince's other
employees and this position continued until the Prince died in 1785.
The prince, Don Luis, was a wildly eccentric and dissipated character.
He had been created cardinal and primate of all Spain at the ridiculous
age of ten. But his libido was such that he renounced his vows. He had
large estates and had unusual interests such as coin collecting and
exotic birds in his impressive aviary. It was this that inspired Boccherini
to write one of his most celebrated quintets ( G276) entitled L'uccelliera
and inspired too, perhaps by the ornate bird tapestries in the royal
apartments.
Don Luis developed an allergy to wearing no form of clothing close
to his neck which accounts for portraits of him with plunging neckline
as in the work by Goya. After much philandering he married Dona Maria
Teresa Vallabriga y Rosas in 1776 who although from a notable Aragonese
family was not of royal blood. Unequal marriages were not permitted
however. He could only marry her if she were never received at court.
And so, after the marriage, Don Luis and his wife removed from Aranjuez
to the palace of Los Arenas in Avila, some one hundred miles distant.
This was not exactly exile for he continued to be received in court
once a year.
Boccherini went too. He was fortunate in having a colleague in the
household of one Francisco Font who with his three talented sons formed
a string quartet which could play at court. This is why, when at Avila,
Boccherini wrote much chamber music for string instruments.
But to backtrack.
At the time that Boccherini entered the service of the Infante he married
Clementina Pelicho and they had two sons and three daughters. We know
nothing of his wife but that she died of apoplexy in 1785, the same
year that the Infante died.
And so ended Boccherini's privileged and peaceful life.
Boccherini did not have a good relationship with the court in Madrid.
He had been invited to compose a work in which the Prince of the Asturias
could play but he was a hopeless violinist. So Boccherini wrote a part
for him that was easy with many repeated notes. The prince was furious
and considered that his dignity had been slandered. It is said that
the prince, who was a man of large physique, held Boccherini by the
legs and threatened to drop him out of a window. The Quintet is almost
certainly the one in A (G308) of 1779.
On Don Luis's death Boccherini petitioned King Charles III for the
continuation of his salary in consideration of his devotion to the Infante
and the king agreed and the handsome stipend was paid for the rest of
his life.
In 1783 the Ambassador of the King of Prussia visited the Spanish court
and was impressed with a set of Boccherini's string quartets and, with
Don Luis's permission, a set of parts were copied for the Ambassador
to take back with him. The king's nephew, Frederick William was no mean
cellist. On the death of the Infante Frederick William invited Boccherini
to become his chamber composer with an annual, pension of as thousand
crowns in return for an annual dispatch of quartets and quintets. The
composer sent some 56 pieces of music to his new royal master soon to
become King Frederick William II on the death of his uncle in 1786.
Some have assumed that Boccherini actually took up the position of
court musician and became a resident at Potsdam and that he remained
there until the death of the king in 1797. But there is no evidence
to show that Boccherini ever set a foot in Prussia.
In the meantime, Boccherini had found another patron in the Countess
Duchess of Benaventi-Osuna whose salon in Madrid was in constant rivalry
with that of the Duchess of Alba who had patronised Brunetti. Here Boccherini
had an orchestra and under the auspices of his new mistress's mother,
Countess Duchess Dowager of Benavente, Marchioness of Penafiel, composed
his only opera La Clementina. The score was lost but came to light and
was first performed in recent times in 1951 by the Florence Maggio Musicale.
We know that Boccherini marred for the second time in 1787. His new
wife was Maria del Pilar Joaquina Poretti daughter of the cellist Domingo
Poretti, a friend of the composer.
The death of King Frederick William II of Prussia resulted in the cessation
of emoluments. His successor, King Frederick William III was not interested
in re-engaging Boccherini whose main source of income was now from the
publishers of his music in Paris, most notably Pleyel. Pleyel was a
mercenary and unscrupulous manipulator and did not always account fairly
to Boccherini. The rivalry with other publishing houses became unbelievably
unpleasant and the correspondence between Pleyel and Boccherini indicates
great hostility and vitriol from Pleyel.
Boccherini dedicated his piano quintets Op. 57 to the French nation.
But Boccherini suffered. He still had work in Madrid. The Marquis of
Benavente commissioned him to arrange some of his piano quintets for
guitar which event must have been the first time that the guitar was
considered to be a classical instrument. Hitherto its use was confined
to seedy establishments and brothels with lurid dancers, castanets and
stomping feet.
Lucien Bonaparte's appointment in Madrid as ambassador was short-lived.
He was recalled to Paris in 1802 thus Boccherini's new patron was removed.
For Bonaparte, Boccherini wrote two sets of quintets opp. 60 and 62.
From that time on, Boccherini's circumstances changed. In 1802 two
of his daughters died; his second wife and another daughter died in
1804 and Boccherini's health was uncertain. When he died on 28th May
1805 it was said that he had been reduced to destitution and was living
in a miserable one-room garret reached by a ladder from outside in which
there was a chair, table and a decaying viola lacking three strings.
This was supported by the pianist Sophie Gall on a visit to him but,
as this was reported by Fétis in his Biographies Universelle
and we know that he was an unreliable historian it is difficult to know
what to believe.
Although a prolific composer a trunk of his work and manuscripts were
destroyed in a fire in Madrid in 1936 during the civil war. There remains
20 symphonies, 8 cello concertos, 91 string quartets, 154 quintets,
and the arrangements for guitar of some of them, sonatas, 60 trios and
much church music.
Fanciful expressions have been bestowed on Boccherini. He was called
'The Wife of Haydn' and it is debated what this really means. If it
means that his music was effeminate compared to Haydn's most masculine
approach then the remark is unkind and untrue. Boccherini's music had
grace. If it was suggesting that he was homosexual we have to say that
this is untrue. He was also called The Musical Fountain of Lucca because
music just streamed from him.
There are some dreadful frauds perpetrated on his music. There is a
Cello Concerto in B flat arranged by Friedrich Wilhelm Grutzmacher but
it is clearly not Boccherini. Another corrupt text is a Violin Conceto
in D which we know was written in 1924. There is also a Flute Concerto
in D, named as Opus 27, but it is not by Boccherini but by Franz Xaver
Pokorny.
Copyright David C F Wright. This article must not be copied, stored
in any retrieval system, downloaded or used in part or the whole without
first obtaining the written permission of the author.
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