Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805) - photo 1
Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805) - photo 2
Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805) - photo 3
Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805) - photo 4

Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805)

Lot 210
15.12.2023 11:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
£ 100
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1109010
Lot 210 | Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805)
Estimate value
£ 15 000 – 20 000
Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805)
Autograph manuscript, a thematic catalogue of chamber and orchestral compositions, [c.1796-7]
Listing chamber and orchestral compositions composed between c.1775 and c.1787 with incipits. Three leaves in all, 310 x 200mm, the thematic catalogue over three sides, with two additional sides in scribal hands, with legal stamps. Provenance: Sotheby's, 18 & 19 May 1989, lot 375.

A catalogue prepared by Boccherini for his publisher Ignace Pleyel in c.1796/7, containing a group of instrumental compositions compiled during negotiations for the publishing of the music, within a legal document signed by royal notary Antonio Martinez Llorente. The works included are ordered according to Boccherini’s own cataloguing: Op. 21, ‘Sei Sinfonie, Op[er]a grande’ (c.1775); Op. 25, ‘Sei Quintetti, opera grande’ (c.1778); Op. 27, ‘Sei Quintettini, opera piccola’ (c.1779); Op. 28, ‘Sei Quintetti, op[er]a grande’ (c.1779); Op. 29, ‘Sei Quintetti, op[er]a grande (c.1779); Op. 30, ‘Sei Quintettini, op[er]a piccola’ (c.1780); Op. 31, ‘Sei Quintetti, opera grande’ (c.1780); Op. 32, ‘Sei Quartetti, opera grande’ (c.1780); Op. 33, ‘Sei Quartettini, opera grande’ (c.1781); Op. 34, ‘Sei Terzetti, op[er]a grande’ (c.1781); Op. 35, ‘Sei Sinfonie, op[er]a grande’ (c.1782); Op. 36, ‘Sei Quintettini, op[er]a piccola’ (c.1784-6); Op. 37, ‘Tre Sinfonie, op[er]a grande’ (c.1786); Op. 38, ‘Cinque sestetti, e un otteto, opera piccola’ (c.1787); Op. 39, ‘Tre quintetti, e un quartetto op[er]a grande’ (c.1787).

Much of the music in this manuscript is derived from Boccherini’s most successful period under the patronage of the Infante Luis Antonio lasting from 1770 until 1785. The manuscript includes the opening pizzicato figure ‘Le campane de l’Ave Maria’ from the composer’s well-known programmatic quintet La musica notturno di Madrid, inspired by the composer’s nostalgia and home sickness felt during the time he spent in exile with the Infante in Arenas de San Pedro.

Surviving letters from this time indicate that the relationship between Boccherini and his publisher was often strained, with the composer’s correspondence apparently answered by discourtesy and procrastination. These manuscripts are of particular significance since the composer’s own thematic catalogue, which he kept from 1760 until the end of his life, was destroyed in the Spanish Civil War of 1936. Published editions by Louis Piquot (1851) and Alfredo Boccherini (1879), the composer’s great-grandson, provide a record of that manuscript and its cataloguing of Boccherini’s instrumental music. The composer’s only known surviving autograph thematic catalogues come from the group prepared for Pleyel, of which just one other is known to have been offered at auction.
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