5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Music for music's sake" and the "Menuet-Celebre" in its original context., May 14, 2008
This review is from: Boccherini: String Quintets, Vol. 2 (Audio CD)
This is the second installment of Boccherini's huge body of quintets and it opens with a suave finesse from the Allegro of the first quintet. This is elegant writing that is not trying to do anything but please the listener. Incidently, here is where Boccherini receives the lion's share of his criticism - that he wasn't a profound writer. One could build a case that this assertion is ignorant at best, but overall, Boccherini never saw music as a tool to convey profundity a la Mozart (think Requiem) or Beethoven (think 9th Symphony). His was an ethos of music for music's sake and that comes across beautifully in this recording.
You will find that Op 11 isn't as continually permeated by inventive sparks and thrilling rushes as his previous set. This starts off as a calmer body of work and the first disk will convince you of that until the last track - a cheerfully rambunctious Allegro that heralds in disc 2. On the second disk you will find something very rare indeed - the "Menuet Celebre" in its original context. This little Minuette has been ripped out of its quintet and played in countless movies ad-nauseum to the point that I'm sure lost tribes in the deepest rainforests will have heard it. But here you have the diamond AND the ring, so to speak (though I really feel they play it too fast but you be the judge). Last of all is the curious "L'Uccelliera" (bird sanctuary). Boccherini's employer was Don Luis de Borbon - a happily eccentric man who delighted in collecting all manner of rare odds and ends among which was an aviary. Here our composer puts on his "pastorale" hat and creates a very original, fascinating and ultimately rococo picture of birds, shepherds and hunters. Now birds have been imitated before, but here the strings imitate hunter's horns, which is one of Boccherini's fun little quarks - making the violin family sound like everything from guitars to a Jew's harp [Op 36. no 6]).
Everything is genteel and gracious throughout - putting this album more in the "easy listening" category - perhaps the perfect thing to compliment a warm spring day.
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