String Trio in D major Op.14 No.4/G98 (1773)

Think of a string ensemble, anything from duo to sextet, and the chances are that there will be at least a few interesting examples in the Boccherini chamber-music catalogue. He was not as prolific in producing trios as he was in producing quartets and quintets - he wrote just under 50 trios, twice as many quartets and well over 100 quintets - but with them he made a significant (if at present under-explored) contribution to an area of the repertoire little cultivated by his contemporaries in major centres like Vienna and Paris.

The motivation for Boccherini’s extraordinary activity was partly his professional duty to furnish scores for his noble patrons in Spain, where he had settled in 1768, but also an apparently unfailing delight in string textures. The attractively dark-coloured beginning of the String Trio in D Op.14 No.4, obtained by the simplest of means, is only the first example. Presented as the main theme of the Allegro giusto, these gently melodious opening bars are brought into early confrontation with emphatically brighter material on the violin. That contrast reamains the basic textural concern of the rest of movement. Although Boccherini indulges the cello (his own instrument) rather less in this work than in others of the Op.14 set, reserving most of the melodic and bravura interest for the violin, he brings both the viola and the cello into effective prominence in the development section.

The Andantino is not so much a slow movement as, in spite of its tempo direction, an anticipation of the late-classical scherzo. Beginning nervously on the violin, the other two instruments sharing the fragmented rhythms, it escapes the prevailing anxiety from time to time but never quite shakes it off. Reassurance is secured by a briskly conclusive finale. Most of the virtuoso activity is awarded to the violin but neither the viola nor, still less, the cello is neglected in a resourcefully sustained example of string-trio brilliance.