Luigi Boccherini

Listeners familiar with classical music in passing might recognize Boccherini's celebrated Minuet without knowing that Luigi Boccherini functioned as an 18th-century cello virtuoso whose performances and compositions earned widespread acclaim across Europe. That Minuet appears in one of his more than 100 string quintets, pieces created expressly to display his technical command of the instrument. He also produced roughly 100 string quartets, prompting some observers to label him an uncle to the form if Franz Joseph Haydn receives credit as its father. Among his remaining output stand cello concertos and sonatas, a handful of symphonies, and various vocal compositions.

Born on February 19, 1743, Boccherini was the son of a professional musician who became the first double bassist to present solo recitals. The elder Boccherini began giving his son cello lessons when the child reached five years of age. From the age of nine Luigi pursued further instruction under Abbé Vanucci, music director of the cathedral at San Martino. Upon the boy's initial public appearance, observers acknowledged that he had already exceeded his teacher's abilities. He traveled to Rome for training with G. B. Costanzi, music director of St. Peter's Basilica. After a single year there, Luigi and his father received a summons to Vienna, where the Imperial Theater Orchestra engaged them both.

Boccherini's compositions first reached print when he turned 17. In 1765 he accompanied his father to Milan, then a gathering point for skilled musicians, and there he completed his initial string quartet. That same year the chronic illness that would affect him throughout his life began to manifest. A further loss arrived in 1766 with his father's death. He formed a fresh alliance with violinist Filippo Manfredi, and the pair toured Italy in 1767 before reaching Paris, where audiences greeted them enthusiastically. Boccherini issued several notable publications there, among them a set of six string quartets, after which he began composing and releasing works at a rapid pace.

In 1769 Boccherini and Manfredi proceeded to Spain, where the composer received enthusiastic praise. He next explored the string quintet, a medium for which he ultimately gained greatest recognition, scoring these pieces for string quartet plus an extra cello. With the security of steady employment he married in 1771. His wife succumbed to a stroke in 1785, the same year his Spanish patron, Archbishop Don Luis, passed away, depriving Boccherini of his post. He petitioned King Charles for continued musical employment, receiving a pension and assorted assignments in return. His circumstances improved again in 1786 when Friedrich Wilhelm, soon to become King of Prussia, appointed him "Composer of Our Chamber." Although most new works went to Friedrich Wilhelm, Boccherini stayed in Spain and produced his sole opera, the zarzuela La clementina.

Boccherini remarried in 1787. In 1796 he entered an agreement with publisher, composer, and piano maker Ignaz Pleyel, who issued his music to favorable notice yet withheld rightful earnings. By February 1803 reports described Boccherini as living in "distress," though emotional despondency may have contributed as much as financial strain, given that two daughters perished from an epidemic within days of each other in 1802. In 1804 both his wife and his sole surviving daughter died. Though he kept composing until the close of his life, Boccherini appeared to retain little will to continue, and he died on May 28, 1805, from what was termed "pulmonary suffocation." He was interred at the Church of San Justo in Madrid. His remains were exhumed in 1927 and reburied at the Basilica of San Francesco in his native Lucca.