Symphonies Nos 3, 8 & 21

Luigi Boccherini was born in 1743 in Lucca. He was to become one of the greatest cellists of his time, and travelled all over Europe giving virtuoso performances. His compositional genius only fully emerged when he took up permanent residence at the court of the Infante Don Luis in Spain. He is most associated with chamber music, especially the string quintet. But his output also included about thirty symphonies. Three have been recorded here. Nos 3 and 8 were composed for Don Luis in 1771, whereas No. 21 was written for King Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia in 1786. None of the symphonies is well known and they are seldom recorded.

The Contemporaries of Mozart series is one of the longest-running on Chandos and offers performances of rarely recorded works, played by an orchestra which understands this repertoire completely.