Luigi Rodolfo Boccherini (; February 19, 1743 – May 28, 1805) was an
Italian classical era composer and
cellist whose
music retained a
courtly and
galante style while he matured somewhat apart from the major European musical centers. Boccherini is most widely known for one particular
minuet from his
String Quintet in E, Op. 11, No. 5 (G 275), and the
Cello Concerto in B flat major (G 482). The latter
work was long known in the heavily altered version by German
cellist and prolific arranger
Friedrich Grützmacher, but has recently been restored to its original version. Boccherini composed several guitar quintets, including the "Fandango", which was influenced by Spanish music. His biographer Elisabeth Le Guin noted among Boccherini's musical qualities "an astonishing repetitiveness, an affection for extended passages with fascinating textures but virtually no melodic line, an obsession with soft dynamics, a unique ear for sonority, and an unusually rich palette of introverted and mournful affects."