{$}Haydn's contemporary Boccherini, a virtuoso cellist, wrote prolifically for the instrument. Indeed, an attractive feature of Boccherini's music in general is his incorporation of vivid cello writing into pieces in genres where the cello had previously been merely a harmonic support; his string quintets, unlike those of Mozart, call for the combination of two cellos, a viola, and two violins. His twelve cello concertos cover various phases of his long career, which took him from Italy, to France, to Spain and perhaps Germany. Several of them are display pieces that top cellists have favored ever since the composer's day; though Boccherini's graceful and tuneful language is very much of the classical era, they seem to point forward to the age of the virtuoso solo star. This A major concerto (the composer's second) is an early work, perhaps one of those composed in Italy and taken on tour by Boccherini when he made his reputation (and eventually his home) in Paris in the late 1760s.

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