String Quartet in E flat major Op.58 No.2

While it is historically correct to acknowledge Boccherini’s contribution to the development of the string quintet, the present-day fact is that his well over 100 examples of that form have little or no place in the repertoire. Those with two violas cannot compete with Mozart’s and those with two cellos, the vast majority, are seriously overshadowed by Schubert’s singular achievement in C major. As for the not far short of 100 string quartets, they are all but forgotten. They do not deserve their neglect. The late ones, like the Op.58 set published in Paris in 1803, are particularly interesting. Written in 1799, after the composer had been living in Spain for thirty years, the Op.58 works represent a fascinating sub-species developed with only limited experience of what Haydn and Mozart had accomplished in Vienna in the meantime.

The first movement of the Quartet in E flat sounds, to ears attuned to the Viennese classics, curiously archaic. This is largely a matter of a texture that displays little counterpoint and is dominated by the first violin, except that the cello does have an extended solo share in the second subject towards the end of the exposition. The development is rather more enterprising in these respects, although the counterpoint is more simulated than real, and it makes effective use of the sudden dramatic gestures featured in the exposition. Having turned to the second subject half-way through the development, Boccherini offers not so much a recapitulation as a coda based on the first subject.

There is no minuet in the other five works in the Op.58 set and it cannot be claimed that the Menuetto of No.2 in E flat is on the same level of inspiration as the two following movements. The C minor Larghetto finds much pathos in its intimately expressive main theme and, in timely contrast, the Finale amuses itself - perhaps to please Boccherini’s Parisian publisher - with a little tune based on “Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman” (adopted by Mozart for his piano variations K.265 twenty years earlier). Virtually a monothemetic construction, it is contrapuntally accomplished even if it never comes up with the fugue promised in the openiing bars.. The late ones, like the Op.58 set published in Paris in 1803, are particularly interesting. Written in 1799, after the composer had been living in Spain for thirty years, the Op.58 works represent a fascinating sub-species developed with only limited experience of what Haydn and Mozart had accomplished in Vienna in the meantime.

The first movement of the Quartet in E flat sounds, to ears attuned to the Viennese classics, curiously archaic. This is largely a matter of a texture which displays little counterpoint and which is dominated by the first violin, except that the cello does have an extended solo share in the second subject towards the end of the exposition. The development is rather more enterprising in these respects, although the counterpoint is more simulated than real, and it makes effective use of the sudden dramatic gestures featured in the exposition. Having turned to the second subject half-way through the development, Boccherini offers not so much a recapitulation as a coda based on the first subject.