Allegretto commodo assai
Minuetto

Boccherini’s chamber music was extremely popular in Paris at the end of the eighteenth century. He was working in Madrid at the time, and had a lively correspondence with the composer and publisher Pleyel who had settled in Paris in 1795. In July 1797 Boccherini wrote about “an excellent oboist called Gaspar Barli not only has an extraordinary sweetness but draws the finest sounds from the highest register of his instrument.” Barli was the court oboist to Charles III and Charles IV of Spain and was for this remarkable player that Boccherini wrote a set of six quintets for oboe and strings. When Pleyel published them in Paris the same year, he clearly had an eye on maximising sales: they appeared as ‘Six nouveaux Quintetti pour flûte ou hautbois’, and they are often still played on the flute, as well as the oboe that Boccherini intended. The D minor Quintet is in two movements, both in the home key. The first has some attractive harmonic quirks while the second is a formal but very engaging Minuet which also has hints of the Spanish fandango.

Nigel Simeone © 2012