A Night in Madrid

When the 2026 Pacific Baroque Festival begins in just over a week’s time, we’ll discover just how apt a title “Spanish Connections” is for this year’s Festival. Not only will our ears be opened to the unique and beguiling sounds of Spain in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, but we’ll also discover the rich results of encounters with Iberian culture among composers from many different parts of Europe.

Case in point: Saturday evening’s program with the Pacific Baroque Festival Ensemble.  Composer and cellist Luigi Boccherini was born in Italy, but moved at the age of 25 to Spain, where he remained until his death, almost forty years later.  He was employed by the younger brother of the King of Spain, and followed his patron into exile from the court in Madrid to a remote town in the rolling hill country northwest of the capital, where he had ample time for composing.

A virtuoso cellist, Boccherini’s prolific output includes much music for his own instrument, including over a hundred string quintets for two violins, a viola and (unusually) two cellos.  We’ll hear one of those pieces on this program, as well as a quintet for four strings and fortepiano.  Boccherini also became enamoured of the Spanish guitar, and wrote a dozen quintets for guitar and strings – not all of which, unfortunately, survive.  Our program includes one of those that does, featuring the gifted Toronto-based guitarist and early music specialist Lucas Harris.

Undoubtedly the most characteristically “Spanish” selection in this concert will be Boccherini’s Night Music of the Streets of Madrid, for string quintet.  It is descriptive, evocative, programmatic music.  As critic Jaume Tortella writes: "Taking its inspiration from nocturnal street scenes of Madrid, it seems to look back nostalgically to the gaiety and bustle of Spain's capital, recalling the sound of the city's church bells ringing for evening prayer, the popular dances that were the delight of its young people, and the blind beggars singing their typical viellas de rueda until the soldiers from the local garrison sound the midnight curfew with their Retreat."