University News Last updated 11 February 2019
A major survey of the chamber music of Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805) is to receive a surprise visitor when the festival opens at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
The composer’s great-great-great-great-grandson heard about Viva Boccherini! and is travelling from Spain to celebrate the event devoted to his illustrious ancestor.
A contemporary of Mozart, the prolific composer and cellist, Luigi Boccherini, was Italian by birth but spent the majority of his life in Madrid where his descendents have remained. Speaking from Spain where he is President of the Association Luigi Boccherini, José Antonio Boccherini explains: “Luigi Boccherini moved from Italy to Spain when he was 25 years old. He married in Spain and had seven children here. Most of them died early and only two survived: one was a priest and the second child, José Mariano, from whom I am descended, had only one child. I am a sixth generation direct descendent of Luigi. It will be a pleasure for me to attend the Boccherini festival in a country where some of the members of our Boccherini Association reside.”
Over 100 performers – students, staff and visiting artists – will be involved in the event which represents a unique chance to hear many of Boccherini’s rarely-performed works. Exploring the breadth of his chamber music, with a particular focus on the string and guitar quintets, Viva Boccherini! culminates in an orchestral concert featuring the celebrated cellist Jian Wang as soloist in the well-loved Concerto in B flat alongside his best-known symphony The House of the Devil.
Festival organiser and cellist, Peggy Nolan, is leading the charge: “It will be an honour for us to perform for José Antonio Boccherini. Our students and faculty alike have relished the opportunity to immerse ourselves in this beautiful and colourful music. Opportunities to hear Boccherini’s music live are very rare, and although some of his works, such as his celebrated minuet (made famous through the film The Lady Killers), are well known to audiences today, huge quantities of his music have been all but lost to time, only recently enjoying a revival. In putting together this festival I wanted to present a selection that shows his unique voice through the great variety in style, character and instrumentation of his vast output.”
For Royal Birmingham Conservatoire’s Principal, Professor Julian Lloyd Webber, “this is an extraordinary quirk of fate!
Highlights include Boccherini’s Aria accademica featuring stratospheric writing for obbligato cello with solo soprano; Musica notturno, the composer’s tongue-in-cheek depiction of the procession of the military night watch through Madrid’s streets; the Stabat Mater in its original version; and a spectacularly virtuosic Sonata in A for cello and basso performed by two of the Conservatoire’s esteemed double bass faculty members.
Viva Boccherini! takes place on Monday 11 – Wednesday 13 February 2019 at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. For further information and details of how to book, visit www.bcu.ac.uk/concerts or call 0121 331 5909