Luigi Boccherini (1743 -1805)

Quintets for Guitar and String Quartet Vol. 2
Quintet in D Major, G. 448
Quintet in D Major, G. 449
Quintet in G Major, G. 450

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 on I y in music, but boasted poets and dancers among its members. His eider brother Giovan Gastone, born in 1742, was both dancer and poet, the author of 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 Vigaṇ, 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 h