Luigi Boccherini (1743 - 1805)
Guitar Quintets Vol. 3
The Italian cellist and composer Luigi Boccherini was born in Lucca in 1743,
the son of a double-bass player. His family was distinguished not only in music,
but boasted poets and dancers among its members. His eider brother Giovan
Gastone, born in 1742, was both dancer and poet, the authorof the text of
Haydn's Il ritorno di Tobia and the libretti of some earlier stage-works
of the Vienna Court Composer, Antonio Salieri. His sister Maria Ester was a
dancer and married Onorato Vigano, a distinguished dancer and choreographer. Her
son, Salvatore Vigano, who studied composition with Boccherini, occupies a
position of considerable importance in the history of ballet.
Boccherini was giving concerts as a cellist by the age of thirteen, and in
1757 went with his father to Vienna, where they were both invited to join the
orchestra of the court theatre. Boccherini returned to Italy, but there were
further visits to Vienna, before he finally secured a position in his native
town. In 1766, however, he set out with his fellow-townsman, the violinist
Manfredi, a pupil of Nardini, for Paris, having performed with both violinists
and with Cambini in chamber music in Milan the previous year.
In France Boccherini and Manfredi won considerable success, and the former
continued his work as a composer, as well as appearing as a cello virtuoso. In
1768 the pair left for Spain, where Boccherini seems to have lived until his
death in 1805. In Madrid he was appointed composer and virtuoso de camera to the
Infante Don Luis, younger brother of King Charles III. Part of the following
period he spent in Madrid and part at the Palace of Las Arenas in the province
of Avila, where the Infante retired after an unacceptable marriage. Members of
the Font family were employed by Don Luis as a string quartet and renewed their
association with Boccherini at the end of the century. After the death of the
Infante in 1785 the composer entered the service of the Benavente-Osuna family.
At the same time he was appointed court composer to Friedrich Wilhelm, who in
1787 became King of Prussia, providing the cello-playing king with new
compositions on the same kind of exclusive arrangement that he had earlier
enjoyed with Don Luis. There is, however, no evidence that Boccherini ever spent
any time in Prussia. After the death of Friedrich Wilhelm and the departure of
other patrons from Madrid, Boccherini received support from Lucien Bonaparte,
French ambassador in Madrid, and remained busy to the end of his life, although
visitors reported that he lived in all the appearance of poverty.
Boccherini's style is completely characteristic of the period in which he
lived, the period, that is, of Haydn rather than that of Mozart or Beethoven. He
enjoyed a reputation for his facility as a composer, leaving some 467
compositions. A great deal of his music is designed to exploit the technical
resources of the cello, in concertos, sonatas, and, particularly, in chamber
music for various numbers of instruments, including a remarkable series of
quintets with two cellos. The twelve quintets for guitar and string quartet, of
which eight have survived, are arrangements by the composer of works written for
pianoforte quintet in the late 1790s, sometimes drawing on earlier string
quintets. La ritirata di Madrid, so called from its last movement set of
twelve variations on the theme of that name, was written in 1798, based
principally on the Piano Quintet G. 409. The Guitar Quintet in E
minor, G. 451, has its origin in a: piano quintet dated 1797 in the
composer's autograph catalogue.
By far the best known today of all Boccherini's compositions must be the
Minuet of his String Quintet in E major, G. 275, dated 1771 in the
composer's catalogue and first published in 1775 as part of a set of six string
quintets, scored, as are 118 of the 184 he w rote, for two violins, viola and
two cellos. As so often the quintet opens with a gentle Amoroso movement,
followed by a more energetic Allegro con spirito, fertile in invention. The
Minuet, an embodiment of the rococo that won its present popularity only towards
the end of the nineteenth century, is followed by a final rondo.
Zoltan Tokos
The Hungarian guitarist Zoltan Tokos was born in Kolozsvar, where he began
his musical studies, continued subsequently at the Budapest Music Academy under
Szendrey Karper Laszlo, in Athens and in master classes with John William
Sandwith Leo Brouwer. Since 1976 he has been a member of the teaching staff of
the Liszt Music Academy in Debrecen. As a performer he has given concerts
throughout Europe and his recordings include the Joaquin Rodrigo Concierto de
Aranjuez with the Budapest Strings. His guitar transcriptions have been
published by Editio Musica Budapest, Schott, Universal and Salabert.
Danubius String Quartet
The Danubius String Quartet has won considerable acclaim since its
establishment in 1983. With the violinists Mária Zs. Szabó and Adel Miklós,
violist Cecilia Bodolai and cellist Ilona Ribli, and the artistic direction of
the distinguished violinist Vilmos Tatrai, the quartet won awards at Trapani,
Evian and Graz in the earlier years of its foundation, and has recorded, among
other works, the String Quartet No.1 of Reményi for Hungaroton, the
complete String Quartets of Villa- Lobos for Marco Polo and for Naxos the Mozart
and Brahms Clarinet Quintets. The Danubius String Quartet has given
recitals in Austria, Germany, Yugoslavia, Italy, France and Switzerland and
appeared at a number of international festivals.
