Str Qnts/Minuet In [Import]

There is a shameful dearth of recordings of Boccherini's string quintets in today's marketplace. Why such a masterful group of works goes untouched is a mystery to me, but it was with great pleasure that I snapped up this marvelous CD by Fabio Biondi and his Europa Galante cohorts. This disc is everything you would hope for in a chamber music recording: excellent recorded sound; sharp, witty playing; and intriguing compositions. I have yet to be bored by any of Boccherini's works, and am surprised that these hundred-some string quintets (with two cellos) are not treated with the same level of respect as, say, Scarlatti's sonatas. The inclusion of the famous minuet from Op. 11 no. 5 is a little gratuitous, but the players take at it with such verve that I can hardly complain. Seek out the Smithsonian Chamber Players' out-of-print recording of Op. 11 nos. 4, 5 and 6 on DHM. The Op. 11 quintets feature more virtuosic writing for the cello than these Op. 25 quintets, which are a nice vehicle for Biondi's considerable talents (though the group as a whole performs very well together). Really fascinating music. If you're a lover of the Classical era, of Boccherini, or of chamber music in general, I highly recommend this CD. I hope there's more to come.

...it stands to reason that you might like Luigi Boccherini as well. He was an eminently successful composer of the same era (1743-1805), a famous cello virtuoso and a rival in fame to Haydn amongst his contemporaries. But he's also had a reputation as a lightweight - Haydn's Wife, he was mockingly called - and he's lacked the modern symphonic advocacy that Mozart has enjoyed. Besides, his music is outside my own performing repertoire, which concentrates on the 16th & 17th centuries. So I've ignored him. I've skipped concerts featuring his works. 'There's only so much listening time in a life,' I've thought...

...but sometimes a single brilliant performance can compel a guy to open his ears. That's what has happened to me with old Luigi. A few weeks ago I came upon this CD of Boccherini's String Quintets, performed by an ensemble I admire greatly, Europa Galante, led by my favorite Italian Baroque violinist, Fabio Biondi. I was also intrigued by the possibilities of the string quintet with two cellos, which reminded me of the rich bass timbres of the viola da gamba quintets of Elizabethan and Jacobean England. So I ordered it... and the rest is a tale of extravagance, with me starring as the spendthrift who bought eleven CDs of Boccherini in one order.

The vigorous delicacy and sonorous transparency (how do you like those oxymorons?) of Europa Galante suits Boccherini's musical concepts perfectly. Harmonies and rhythmic patterns need to shift in these quintets with Italianate grace rather than Austrian earnestness.
Boccherini spent most of his composing years in Spain, in the same courtly ambiance in which Goya painted his early portraits. There are atmospheric movements in many of his pieces - fandangos and minuets with castanets - that might easily sound like background music for a Spanish travelogue except that Boccherini handles them with concentration and complexity. There are also movements of "Sturm und Drang" as stormy and drangy as any of Haydn's best; clearly Boccherini was aware of and influenced by the Mannheim school. Then there are moments of exuberance that carry me back to Vivaldi, to the manly modes of the high Baroque before the perfumed Rococo became the fashion.

Boccherini was himself a cellist, and he stretched the capacities of his favored instrument to the maximum, sending the cello into its highest register above the viola for extended passages. I'm sure I hear a murmur of cellists shouting Hey! How come it took you so long! I'll wager every cellist in the world keeps a bust of Boccherini on her/his mantelpiece. Beyond these wonderfully rich quintets, there's a virtuoso's repertoire of cello sonatas, cello concertos, and for good measure a set of quintets with double bass. Europa Galante has also recorded a disk of Boccherini's string quintets with guitar as the fifth voice. Glorious!

The comparison with Mozart is inevitable. Boccherini wrote nothing, as far as I know, to match Mozart's greatest operas, symphonies, or his requiem, in emotional intensity. But Boccherini's chamber music and cello concerti can hold their own next to Mozart's galant best in similar genres, in terms of musical detail and stylishness. Join the Boccherini Club! No penalty for late comers like me!

It's a too bad that Boccherini's two-cello quintet configuration didn't catch on the way the standard quartet did; it's such a rich sonority. (Haydn-Mozart-Vanhal should have invited another cello-playing friend to join them.) I haven't heard many recordings of the quintets, but have liked all that I have heard, and these performances especially. Biondi and four members of Europa Galante really bring these pieces to life. If they would just continue recording more Boccherini, maybe he would rise in current opinion to the place he deserves. This recording alone should destroy the old "wife of Haydn" slur.

From these players' imaginative interpretations, to the composer's playful experiments with form, this disc is a delight throughout.

In the opening Allegro of the A minor work the development ends with a dancing theme, which is played straight the first time, but on the repeat it is transformed into startlingly furious guitar-strumming and stamping of heels; then, the trio of the following movement is like a reminiscence of this vivid dance.

The C major Quintet should be given some nickname like "Nights in the Taverns of Spain" -- you can almost smell the wine on the players' breath as they drunkenly laugh, argue, and try to tell sentimental stories in the woozy first movement.

The D minor Quintet opens with a deep slow movement then builds to a real flywheel of a Rondo fourth movement finale.

The Minuet tacked onto the end of the disc is a bit of a letdown after the previous, but hear it as an encore and it's just fine. Who could argue about a few more minutes of such wonderful string sound?