EARLY ITALIAN VIOLONCELLO MUSIC
Played by JULIETTE Alvin
BOCCHERINI, in his own day in the very
-D front rank of violoncello players, was also a composer of immense industry. It used to be said of him that lie was a fountain of which it was only necessary to turn on the tap to produce n stream of music. He left no fewer than 467 instrumental works, including twenty symphonies, all of them marked by simple natural melodious-ness, and by a dignified and courtly style. He and Haydn had a great mutual regard, and the relation of Boccherini's music to that of the more famous master was characterized in the saying that ' Boccherini was the wife of Haydn.'
Unlike most of the works which have been played in this series throughout the week, those by Boccherini for the violoncello were actually composed for it, as was only natural ; it was his own instrument. And much of it demands technical skill of such an order that present-day violoncellists realize very well how high a pitch of art Boccherini himself must have reached. It is sad to have to record that his last years were spent in something very like penury and distress. It was an age when Royal or noble patronage was almost necessary if a musician was to flourish, and though at one time Boccherini might truly call himself a friend of Princes, he realized in his latter years that one may not always count on friendships such as theirs enduring.