The most emblematic work among Boccherini’s descriptive music is his quintet with two cellos La musica notturna delle strade di Madrid, which ‘depicts’ a cross-section of the night in Madrid, from the sound of the Ave Maria on the city’s church bells to the soldiers’ patrol announcing the curfew. In the short time-frame of five movements/episodes, the different souls of the night of Madrid are recalled. This is amplified in his revision of the quintet, extending the final movement through the addition of 11 variations on the theme of the Curfew Patrol. Both versions of the Quintet are presented in this recording, along with the other five that make up Opus 30, designated by Boccherini as an ‘opera piccola’ due to their two-movement structure. In them Boccherini explores various  expressive characters, both within the individual movements and in their juxtaposition, exploiting peculiarities of his art such as the skilful use of modulations and harmonic contrasts, the subtle balancing of melody and texture and the emphasizing of rhythm in the characterisation of musical ideas.

The second set of quintets with two cellos that Boccherini composed, numbered as Op.31, is designated an ‘opera grande’, featuring compositions in more than two movements. The play of characters that Boccherini develops through these quintets appears overall to be even more multifaceted and nuanced than in his Quintets Op.30. In these quintets, as in the Musica notturna and indeed other chamber works by Boccherini, the sacred and profane meet in the name of musical pathos, putting to the listener an ethical and existential question, as well as an aesthetical one. It will be up to each of us to find an answer on the basis of our own sensibilities.