Luigi Boccherini, composer and cellist, and the son of a cello and double bass player, made his public debut as a cellist at the age of 13. In 1757 he went to Rome to perfect his technique and, after a year's study, returned to his native Lucca as a virtuoso cellist. At the same time Boccherini revealed his talents as a composer by giving a special concert of his works with the violinist Filippo Manfredi. The success of this concert was so great that they decided to tour principle cities of France, reaching Paris in 1768. He was hailed as a great virtuoso and his works were widely published and became extremely popular. In 1769 the impresario Don Luis invited him to Madrid to become his court chamber music composer. Here he remained until Luis' death in 1789, when Boccherini was appointed court composer to Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia. He returned to Madrid in 1797 where ill health forced his complete retirement from his violoncello playing, and the death of his two sons discouraged him from composing. Finally, in 1800, he secured the patronage of Napoleon's brother, Lucien Bonaparte, then the French ambassador to Madrid. He held this position until, virtually forgotten, he died on May 28,1805.

Boccherini and Haydn are generally credited with establishing the string quartet form. The reputation of Boccherini, in fact, actually rivaled that of Haydn. Today, Haydn's string quartets and symphonies are performed far more often, but Boccherini's work is still admired for its brilliant melodic invention as well as its lyricism, elegance and refinement. While few of his compositions are regularly performed, almost every cello student becomes familiar with his B-Flat Concerto, and most flute students will have played his Concerto in D Major. Classical guitarists are grateful, too, for his inclusion of their instrument in many quintets for string quartet and guitar.

A prolific composer of chamber music, Boccherini has given us well over 100 string quintets, nearly 100 string quartets and over 100 other chamber works. His style became increasingly personal and even idiosyncratic over the 44 years in which he composed, to such an extent that in his late music lie sometimes seems to be repeating himself (albeit subtly). The earliest trios and quartets are in a standard Italian chamber music idiom, apart from their frequent use of the cello in its tenor register (natural in a virtuoso cellist) and an unusually ornate melodic style. By the works of 1769-70 his technique was fully assured. After the composition of his Op. 24 String Quartets (No. 6 on this concert) his style changed only gradually, gaining in freedom and unorthodoxy to a point where his latest works (from 1790 onwards) show little regard for conventions of form or tonal schemes of the day. Some of the works of these late years suggest a more intimate style, a leisureliness and preoccupation with delicate effects of harmony, texture and rhythmic figuration.