Until fairly recently scant attention had been paid to the life and works of Luigi Boccherini, with articles appearing every now and then in various journals. The monumental thematic catalogue by Yves Gérard (1969) was followed by a small number of other book publications. But it is as if the second centenary of the composer's death in 2005 has triggered the interest of scholars from many parts of the world. In that year the third edition of Remigio Coli's biography appeared (Luigi Boccherini: la vita e le opere (Lucca: Maria Pacini Fazzi, 2005)) and Boccherini conferences were held in Spain and Italy. One was held in Madrid on 17–19 November 2005, with the papers being published as Luigi Boccherini: estudios sobre fuentes, recepción e historiografía, ed. Marco Mangani, Elisabeth Le Guin and Jaime Tortella (Madrid: Biblioteca Regional, 2006), and one was held in Fermo (Italy) on 22–23 November 2005, with papers published as Luigi Boccherini (1743–2005) nel bicentenario della scomparsa (Fermo: Conservatorio Statale, 2006). In addition, not deriving from a conference, there was the volume Luigi Boccherini 1743–1805 en el segundo centenario de su muerte (Madrid: Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, 2007). In the same year the Centro Studi Luigi Boccherini was founded in Lucca, the Centro then launching the new Opera Omnia edition. Volumes published so far are the Arie da concerto G 544–559, ed. Christian Speck (Bologna: Ut Orpheus, 2005), 6 Duetti per 2 Violini, Opus 3, G 56–61, ed. Rudolf Rasch (2007) and 6 Sonate per Tastiera e Violino, Opus 5, G 25–30, ed. Rasch (2009). As a sideline to the Opera Omnia, the series Boccherini Studies was started, with three volumes having appeared in 2007, 2009 and 2011. In Spain the Asociación Luigi Boccherini was founded in 2003, and it has also published a number of books, music editions and recordings. This all culminated in two Boccherini conferences in 2011, the first one held in Madrid in early November and the second in Lucca the following month.

The conference in Lucca was organized by the Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini (Lucca/Pistoia) in association with Palazzetto Bru Zane (Centre de Musique Romantique Française, Venice). It hosted twenty-three speakers, from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States, with presentations being given in English, French and Italian. All topics current in present-day Boccherini scholarship were discussed, with the exception of the purely biographical aspect.

Several papers discussed single works or groups of works. Giuliano Castellani (University of Cambridge) discussed Boccherini's string quartets Op. 15, especially the differences that exist between the editions published in Paris (Venier), Venice (Marescalchi) and Amsterdam (Hummel), and this as a preparation for the edition of these works in the new Opera Omnia. To a similar end, Walter Kreyszig (University of Saskatchewan / Universität Wien) presented observations about the six flute quintets, Op. 17, in relation to the various shades of classicism of the time. Two papers discussed vocal music. The paper by Tim Pack (University of Oregon), read in his absence by Rohan Stewart-Macdonald, primarily discussed the two early oratorios La confederazione dei Sabini con Roma and Giuseppe riconosciuto, which share much musical material. Luca Sala (Université de Poitiers) discussed the famous Stabat mater, and especially the problems that arise as a consequence of the various sources: manuscripts in Lucca, Paris and Washington and two early editions, both authorized (Naples: Amiconi, 1801, and Paris: Sieber, 1805). He will edit the work for the Opera Omnia.

Boccherini's music not only circulated in its original form, but much of it was arranged several times over for other instrumental combinations and found its way into European musical life in this new format. Barbara Cipollone (Università di Bologna) discussed the arrangements for two keyboard instruments of the string quartets Op. 32 and placed them in the long and wide tradition of transcribing ensemble music as keyboard duos.

Several papers discussed certain genres found in Boccherini's oeuvre within a wider context. The string quartet was not only a major genre for Boccherini, it was one of the most important chamber-music genres of his time in general. Comparisons between Boccherini's quartets and those by Haydn and Mozart were the subject of both keynote speeches at the conference. Christian Speck (Universität Koblenz-Landau) compared Boccherini's and Mozart's corpuses of quartets, while in the presentation of Miguel Ángel Marín (Universidad de la Rioja / Fundación Juan March, Madrid) Haydn played a more important role, given how well known he was in Spain, where Boccherini wrote most of his quartets. Attention was also given to other quartet composers active in Spain such as Manuel Canales and Gaetano Brunetti. The relation between Boccherini and Brunetti was further dealt with by Lluís Bertran Xirau (Université de Poitiers), who showed that in Brunetti's music many borrowings from works by Boccherini can be found. Examples were given especially from the string trios of both composers. The violin duet is a minor genre in Boccherini's oeuvre, with only one set of six works (Op. 3). Published in Paris in 1768, it was republished in Madrid in 1772, and this inspired Ana Lombardía (Universidad de La Rioja) to give an overview of the violin duet in Spain during the second half of the eighteenth century, considering works written by both Spanish and foreign composers.

Other speakers approached Boccherini's work from an analytical point of view. My paper (Rudolf Rasch, Universiteit Utrecht) investigated the role of repetition in Boccherini's style, especially as found in the sonatas for keyboard and violin Op. 5. Michael Vincent (University of Florida) coined the term ‘static harmonic modules’ for those passages in Boccherini that show little or no harmonic movement over a long stretch of time, using the Op. 32 quartets for illustration. Rohan Stewart-MacDonald (Leominster, UK) dealt with Boccherini's symphonies and especially with the relations that may exist among the various movements of a single work. Cyclic processes were also discussed by Alessandro Mastropietro (Università di Catania), in a general sense and in particular relation to Boccherini's Quintet g298.

Boccherini's own instrument was the cello, as is more than clear from his cello sonatas and concertos and from the many quartets and quintets where the cello has a virtuoso and often solo role. Three papers focused upon Boccherini's writing for the instrument. Polly Sussex (Auckland) discussed various situations where perhaps a smaller instrument than the modern cello (although of variable size in itself) may be considered to be more apt to do the job: several of the cello sonatas (such as the Sonata ‘L'Imperatrice’) require a wide stretch of the left hand, and Janet & Cotelle's edition of the quintets has substitute parts marked ‘Alto Violoncello’. Priscille Lachat-Sarrete (Université de Paris IV (Sorbonne)) investigated patterns of solo writing in Boccherini's cello concertos, among which the trio pattern, in which the cello plays the role of the first violin, is the most remarkable. Loukia Drosopoulou (York/Berlin) discussed the many idiomatic playing techniques, the ‘special effects’, that Boccherini prescribed in his quintets, such as flautato, sul ponticello, various kinds of harmonics, strascinato and sciolto.

Sources for Boccherini's works were discussed in two papers. Fulvia Morabito discussed the famous ‘lot 520’ of Liepmanssohn's 1904 catalogue, containing important early copies of the composer's guitar quintets. The lot was bought by the German Gitarristische Vereinigung and used for some editions, but has been inaccessible since then. Its reappearance in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich now makes it possible to study the manuscripts themselves and to answer many questions that were unanswerable before. Germán Labrador (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) discussed inventories of music of Boccherini's employer Don Luis de Borbón from the Arenas de San Pedro residence, which gave rise to a number of speculations about the one-time existence of musical works now lost without a trace.

Four papers dealt with the reception of Boccherini's works, from the composer's lifetime onwards. Carmela Bongiovanni (Conservatorio Niccolò Paganini di Genova) presented an overview of Genoese sources of Boccherini's music, of which there are many, and in many genres. A particular and readily recognizable contribution to this corpus of copies was made by the Genoese copyist Federico Taccoli. Carolina Queipo Gutiérrez (Universidad de La Rioja) discussed the role of Boccherini's work in a large private collection of music assembled in Corunna (Spain) at the beginning of the nineteenth century, mostly bought in Paris. Elisa Grossato (Università degli Studi di Verona) gave a survey of the role of Boccherini's music in Italian musical life of the second half of the nineteenth century, as visible in conservatory collections, discussions in periodicals (such as the periodical Boccherini, published by the Società del Quartetto in Florence) and concert programmes, and through published arrangements. Thomas Cimarusti (Texas Tech University) presented data on the dissemination of Boccherini's works in the musical life of the early United States, concluding that they were well known there, and well before 1800.

Two further contributions could be termed ‘metabiographical’. Remigio Coli (Lucca) discussed a report published in a Roman periodical (La Tribuna) of a visit to Boccherini's heirs in Madrid by the journalist Enrico Tedeschi. The latter's description of what he saw there is important because he could still describe original documents that are no longer extant today. Finally, I presented for the first time biographical data about Louis Picquot, Boccherini's first biographer and collector of the composer's works. Born in 1804 in Commercy, Picquot lived in Bar-le-Duc as a percepteur (tax collector) from 1832 to 1853 and subsequently in Civray near Poitiers as receveur particulier (overseeing the tax collection of an entire arrondissement) from 1853 to 1870. He died in Civray in 1870.

The conference also saw the launching of two new publications. First was volume three of Boccherini Studies, edited by Christian Speck. It features articles about: the so-called Boccherini letter in Wroclaw (by Christian Speck; the letter is not by Boccherini but by Abbé Bastiani); Boccherini's handwriting (by Fulvia Morabito, a very comprehensive study); Boccherini's own catalogues (by Remigio Coli); the manuscript F-Pn, MS. 16735, with the autograph Violino Primo of several sets of quintets, and the double-viola quintets Opp. 60 and 62 (both by Loukia Drosopoulou); Liepmanssohn's lot 520 (Fulvia Morabito; see above); the reception of Haydn and Boccherini in the early nineteenth century (by Elisa Grossato); and the role of unison passages in Boccherini's quintets (by Christian Orth). Secondly, my practical edition of Boccherini's Op. 1 trios for two violins and violoncello, composed in 1760, was presented. The corresponding volume of the critical edition, for the Opera Omnia, will follow soon.

The level of the presentations was high, and most of them will be published in one of the next volumes of the Boccherini Studies series. One may assume there will be a follow-up conference in some years' time, but no concrete proposals for such a conference have yet been made.