“I'll have to find a score.” (February 10, 1814)

This may be difficult. No piano version of the quintettino has ever been published, and with good reason. Boccherini’s “La Musica Notturna delle Strade di Madrid”, op. 30 n. 6, was written for two violins, a viola, and two violoncellos. Since the composer made the most of the peculiar qualities of string instruments, his composition doesn't exactly lend itself to translation to keyboard. Take the pizzicati or the strumming, sliding and throbbing sounds produced by strings – you simply can't do that on a pianoforte. Transcribing music for a different instrument must be a bit like translating poetry...

Claire probably skipped the introduction and tried the second movement, the Minuetto, first. Finding that it would require a third hand she moved on to the Largo, with reasonable success, and got thoroughly frustrated in the Passacalle, which also requires a third hand and sounds dreadful on keyboard. The final, maestoso movement might have reconciled her, but by that time Justin and Robert had come in and she gave up. She has another go in Chapter 15, p. 188.

Claire says she knows a piano version of Corelli's Concerto Grosso in D major (Op. 6/1), but it doesn't seem to have been published, either. In all probability this only covers the second, largo movement, which would work reasonably well on keyboard. My playlist on YouTube includes a performance on the piano of Corelli's Concerto Grosso in G minor – valiant, but unconvincing.

If you wish to pursue this further, you'll find the Petrucci Music Library an invaluable resource. It was recommended by my Uncle Michael, who kindly undertook to research the issue and did his best to explain Baroque music to me. Any errors in representing the topic are entirely my own!

 

If you'd like to listen to the pieces featured in the book, please go to my playlist on YouTube, where I've put together a kind of soundtrack to An Independent Heart.

The Spanish gentleman here may well have been familiar with Boccherini's piece, since he was an excellent viola player. By the book he holds in front of him we can see that he ordered his music from Vienna. The object text at the Museo del Prado tells us that he is not in fact leaning on a pianoforte, as one might think, but on a kind of table. At least I think "mesa de gabinete" is a kind of table, or is it the top of a cabinet?

Francisco de Goya, José Álvarez de Toledo, XI marqués de Villafranca, c. 1795

  ©Museo Nacional del Prado