Boccherini Digital

“Did Boccherini ever write a piece of music that was less than delightful? If he did, it wasn’t a cello sonata - at least on the evidence of this disc. We don’t know for sure how many of these sonatas he wrote: Gérard, Boccherini’s Köchel, listed 34, and more recent discoveries bring the total to 42. In this second volume, Michal Kaňka, the cellist of the renowned Pražák Quartet, plays six, and he plays them beautifully, with a warm, singing tone and an elegance that bespeaks Boccherini’s galant style.

The son of a cellist and double bass player, Luigi Boccherini (1745-1805) quickly became famous as a child prodigy on the cello. He began his career at the age of thirteen, and the following year went to Vienna with his father, where they both worked at the court theatre. His time was divided between Vienna and his native city of Lucca until 1766, when he undertook a concert tour with the violinist Filippo Manfredi throughout Europe, staying more than a year in Paris before going to Spain, where Boccherini settled, working as a composer and cellist at court and becoming a prominent figure in the musical life of Madrid.

Ludwig van Beethoven left only a few works for the string trio, and, unlike his quartets, they are played far too seldomly. The Trio Boccherini now presents a complete recording of these trios on the GENUIN label to draw attention to this. The program includes Beethoven's first two works in this genre, the Trio op. 3 and the Serenade op. 8. Ranging between evening entertainment and the concert hall, between music from his youth and maturity, the works are in any case true Beethoven: full of spirit, profound and with great élan! The Trio Boccherini plays historically informed without being dogmatic, technically sophisticated without being hard-nosed - in other words, with passion and verve!

When Boccherini's six quintets for flute and string quartet were published in 1776, the composer described them as "opera piccolo" (little works) because of their generally brief character. But in these splendid performances by Italian Auser Musici, the flute quintets need no disclaimers, and they sound fully equal to the composer's string quintets. Flutist Carlo Ipata takes the lead, and his playing perfectly matches Boccherini's sweet-toned but technically challenging music.