We
tend to think of Boccherini primarily in terms of the many
productive years he spent in Spain, and of the marvellous
music he wrote there. But here is some gorgeous music written
almost ten years before the move to Madrid, written when
Boccherini was still a teenager. During the early years
of the 1760s the young Boccherini was seeking musical employment
in Vienna and in his native Lucca. He was already composing,
and this set of duets was the product of these years of
travel and aspiration. Later in the decade, Boccherini and
the violinist Filippo Manfredi became something of a ‘hit’
in Paris, notably after a public concert in 1768. The duets
were published in Paris the following year, in part, no
doubt, because of Boccherini’s new found popularity and
fame.
The
repertoire for unaccompanied violin duet is not enormous,
at least not if one discounts pieces written for amateurs
and beginners. Even so, any list would include work by,
for example, Stamitz, Haydn, Pleyel, Spohr, Moszkowski,
Wieniawski, Bartók, Prokofiev, Shostakovich. These six duets
by the youthful Boccherini deserve a high place amongst
such company. All six are in three movements. Except for
the first and fourth duets, the format is a slow movement
framed by two quicker ones. The first duet has the sequence
grazioso-allegro-presto; the fourth that of moderato-largo-allegro.
Ezra
Pound, in his ABC of Reading (1951) observes that
“Music rots when it gets too far from the
dance. Poetry atrophies when it gets too far from music”.
Boccherini’s music is never too far from the dance,
never in danger of atrophying. It is worth remembering that
Boccherini’s family connections included not only his double-bass
playing father, but a sister, Maria Ester, who was a prima
ballerina of European reputation. Only four of the movements
in these duets carry the name of a dance – the second, third,
fifth and sixth all end with a movement marked either tempo
di menuetto or minuetto - but the rhythms of the dance,
however hushed, are never very far away. This is true even
of the slow and exquisite grazioso which opens the first
duet and the cantabile adagios of the fifth and sixth. Listening
to the faster movements is a positive invitation to dance!
Boccherini
creates fascinating passages of interplay between the two
violins. For the most part the second violin is restricted
to the role of accompaniment – though never without striking
touches and unexpected details – but at other times, as
in the last movement of the second duet, there is more sense
of a dialogue of equals. Marco Rogliano (who, I presume,
plays first violin) and Gianfranco Iannetta are very persuasive
advocates for this music. They play with sensitivity, secure
tone and intelligence of phrasing.
This
is wonderfully intimate music, ideal for home listening,
given its smallness of scale on the one hand and its substantial
musical content on the other.
Glyn Pursglove
Marco Rogliano, Gianfranco
Ianneta (violins)
