(1743–1805). Italian composer and cellist Luigi Boccherini influenced the development of the string quartet as a musical form. He also composed the first music for a quintet for strings, as well as a quintet with strings and piano. His approximately 500 works also include sacred music, symphonies, and concerti.
Luigi Rodolfo Boccherini was born on Feb. 19, 1743, in Lucca. At an early age he was put under the care of the musical director of the local cathedral. When he reached the age of 13, he was sent to Rome to study with the renowned cellist Giovanni Battista Costanzi, musical director at St. Peter’s Basilica.
In 1757 Boccherini and his father were invited to play in the Imperial Theatre orchestra in Vienna. On his second journey to Vienna, in 1760, Boccherini made his debut as a composer with his Six Trios for Two Violins and Cello, G 77–82.
Boccherini obtained a permanent position with the local church and theater orchestras in Lucca, though he continued to travel as well. He was in Lombardy in 1765, in the orchestra of Giovanni Battista Sammartini. Through his association with this Milanese composer, the 22-year-old Boccherini strengthened the new “conversational” style of the quartet: the cello’s line was now as important as the counterpoint (the intertwining of independent melodic lines) of the violin and viola.
After his father’s death in 1766, Boccherini moved to Paris, where several of his compositions, including Six String Quartets, G 159–164, Six Duets for Two Violins, G 56–61, Six Trios for Two Violins and Cello, G 83–88, and Symphony in D Major, G 500, were published. Musical Paris competed for the young man from Lucca. From Boccherini’s contact with Madame Brillon de Jouy, a harpsichord player, were born his Six Sonatas for Harpsichord and Violin, G 25–30. Boccherini’s style spread throughout Europe, and his Cello Concerto No. 6 in D Major, G 479, became the model for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Violin Concerto in D Major, K 218 (1775).
In the early 1770s Boccherini moved to Madrid to begin a long sojourn at the intrigue-ridden court of Charles III. The king’s brother, the infante Don Luis, conferred on him a yearly endowment for his services as a cellist and composer. During this period Boccherini wrote his well-known Six String Quartets, G 177–182 (1772).
Madrid became Boccherini’s second home. There he married Clementina Pelicho, with whom he had five children. At the infante’s death in 1785, the king granted Boccherini a pension. He received another pension from Frederick William II of Prussia, who was an amateur cellist. Lastly, the duchess of Osuna appointed him conductor of her private orchestra at the Puerta de la Vega Palace in Madrid. To his prodigious instrumental production, Boccherini added vocal compositions: the Stabat Mater, G 532 (1781), the zarzuela La Clementina, G 540 (1786), with libretto by Ramon de la Cruz, and the Christmas Villancicos, G 539 (1783).
After the death of his first wife, Boccherini married Joaquina Porreti in 1787. From 1787 to 1797 he was probably in Berlin, at a post provided by Frederick William II. In 1798 the new king of Prussia withdrew Boccherini’s pension, the duchess of Osuna moved to Paris, and Boccherini’s financial distress was aggravated by poor health. His life was further saddened by the death of his second wife and two daughters during an epidemic. Thereafter he subsisted for the most part in poverty, which by 1804 had compelled him to live in one room with his three surviving children. His last complete work, the String Quartet No. 90 in F Major, G 248, was composed that year. He died on May 28, 1805, in Madrid, Spain.