Guitar Quintet No. 9 in C major, G. 453 "La Ritirata di Madrid"

This four-movement quintet for guitar and string quartet closes with something rare in Classical-era chamber music: a set of twelve variations built around a real street event. Boccherini, living in Madrid, wrote programme notes explaining that the listener should imagine sitting at an open window on a summer night as the Military Night Watch passes through the city below -- the music begins almost inaudibly, swells gradually to full volume as the patrol passes directly underneath, then recedes back into silence as it moves down the street. He reportedly told his publisher the piece would be "absolutely useless, even ridiculous, outside Spain," since audiences elsewhere would not grasp its significance -- and yet it has outlived nearly everything else he wrote.

What to listen for

The finale opens with the theme stated at the very softest dynamic the players can manage, with the guitar carrying the march rhythm alone against sparse string support. Over the twelve variations, the ensemble builds volume in stages rather than all at once, so the loudest point -- roughly two-thirds through -- arrives as a clear peak before the gradual withdrawal. Listen for the moment when the dynamic begins to drop: the string parts thin out and the guitar line starts to fragment, tracking the band rounding a corner and disappearing.

Recommended rendition

The 1978 recording by Pepe Romero with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble on Philips has been frequently cited as the benchmark version of these quintets.

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