Luigi Boccherini: String Quintets with 2 Violoncelli

Luigi Boccherini has today become an almost totally neglected composer, even on the bicentenary of his death. Astonishingly a rather unimportant movement from one of his string quintetts made it into the doubtful hall of fame of popular classics, where it lives the poor life of shopping center and summer party entertainment. Even more astonishing, that Boccherini's string quintets are otherwise hardly known, and only very few of them are available in modern editions. Even the Fandango is only available in Boccherini's arrangement for guitar quintet while the original version for string quintet has apparently been out of print since the early 19th century...

(Excerpt from the programme notes by Johannes Gebauer)

Boccherini's quintet's in A, D minor and D ("Fandango-Quintet").
With Castagnettes, played by the first cellist.
In addition e.g. a string trio by Haydn.

This programme was first performed in June 2005 (celebrating the bicentenary of Boccherini's death in 1805). Each time the Fandango had to be repeated on the request of the audience.

Scoring (5): 2 violins, viola, 2 violoncelli

Concert recording (CD) available on request.