Along with "Night Music from the Streets of Madrid" and the Introduction and Fandango, the greatest hit of Luigi Boccherini is his Minuet in A major. Taken from his Quintet in E major for two violins, viola, and two cellos, Op. 13/5, G. 275, the Minuet is quintessential Rococo, a delightful confection that has become known to an enormous audience in its various arrangements as the embodiment of the final years of the Old Régime in Europe. With its instantly memorable, gracefully elegant tune in the first violins over a lightly buzzing accompaniment rest of the strings in the outer sections in the tonic major, and its equally instantly memorable but slightly more vigorous tune for the violas and cellos beneath witty comments from the violins in the central Trio, Boccherini's Minuet has charmed and delighted two centuries of music lovers. While arrangements of the work range from guitar solo to piano solo, from string trio to string orchestra, from violin or flute with orchestra to full orchestra, Boccherini's original still retains its primacy as the most effective and most evocative form of the work.

© James Leonard, Rovi