Four original versions of Ritirata notturna di Madrid, superimposed and transcribed for orchestra

Luigi Boccherini was born February 19, 1743, in Lucca, Italy, and died May 28, 1805, in Madrid, Spain. He wrote his quintet, Opus 30, No. 6, for string quartet plus guitar, La musica notturna delle strade di Madrid (“Night Music of the Streets of Madrid”) in about 1780. As composers do, he made several versions of this popular piece and excerpted the finale, “Ritirata notturna di Madrid,” as a standalone work. The Italian composer Luciano Berio (October 24, 1925–May 27, 2003) wrote Quattro versioni originali della “Ritirata notturna di Madrid” (“Four Original Versions of ‘Night Retreat of Madrid’”) in 1975 at the request of Teatro alla Scala, Milan. Berio’s piece is four superimposed and orchestrated versions of Boccherini’s finale. Piero Bellugi led the Filarmonica alla Scala in the premiere performance on June 17, 1975, in Milan.

The score of Quattro versioni calls for 3 flutes (3rd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 2 trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, percussion (3 players: I. snare drum; II. snare drum; III. triangle, bass drum), harp, and strings (first and second violins, violas, cellos, and double basses).

Born in Lucca, near Pisa, the Italian composer Luigi Boccherini was an outstanding cellist and composer of the early Classical era, a few years younger than Franz Joseph Haydn and a few years older than Wolfgang Amadè Mozart. His formal and textural innovations were significant in the development of the new Classical style that flourished in the second half of the 1700s; in many ways his work paralleled Haydn’s work in Austria. He traveled extensively as a cellist from an early age, first with his father and later independently, and began composing his first significant works by his late teens. After some success in Paris during a trip with his friend Filippo Manfredi, at age 25 he settled in Spain, where he remained the rest of his life.

A lucrative position in Aranjuez with Don Luis Antonio Jaime, the younger brother of King Carlos III, led to Boccherini’s becoming a very prolific composer, apparently with considerable freedom about what he composed. He wrote dozens of symphonies but is best known now for his chamber music with strings. He wrote more than 100 string quartets (again, paralleling Haydn’s development of the genre) and more than 125 string quintets. After Don Luis’s death, Boccherini became a member of Carlos Ill Real Capilla (Royal Chapel), and Prince Wilhelm, later King Wilhelm II, of Prussia became an important patron. Most of his works were published in Paris.

Boccherini’s string quintet La musica notturna delle strade di Madrid (“Night Music of the Streets of Madrid”) is an evocation of that city’s nighttime street music and activity. Written about 1780, it exists in several versions; the original was for string quartet (2 violins, viola, cello) plus guitar. The last movement of the seven-movement piece is the “Ritirata” or “retreat,” the musical signal for the late-night curfew that was played by the night watch as they made their way from neighborhood to neighborhood. Through dynamics, Boccherini suggests the fading of this music as the party turns a corner. Characteristically for this composer, the specificity of this musical evocation seems almost modern; the “impressionist” Maurice Ravel would pursue a similar idea in the Feria movement of his Rapsodie espagnol.

The great Italian composer Luciano Berio frequently used music he admired as part of the complex narratives of his own works. Most famously, he employed the scherzo of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 as the armature for the third movement of his own kaleidoscopic Sinfonia. His approach to Boccherini is far less radical: he decided to orchestrate and superimpose four variants of the Ritirata, emphasizing slight harmonic discrepancies. Berio wrote:

Ritirata notturna di Madrid for string quintet was such a popular piece in its time that Boccherini transcribed it four times for different instrumental combinations. In 1975, when I was asked to provide a short concert opening piece for the Teatro alla Scala orchestra, I decided to superimpose those four versions of the Ritirata and to transcribe them for orchestra with minor adaptations, highlighting a few rich harmonic “clashes” towards the end of the piece.

One of the clashes must be the sustained horn tone near the end, which seems to go on far longer than one would expect. Berio’s setting is akin to the expansion of forces in Ravel’s Boléro, with a similar constant snare-drum tattoo that recalls the quasi-military origins of the “Retreat.”

Robert Kirzinger

Composer and writer Robert Kirzinger is the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Director of Program Publications.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra first performed this work under Dennis Russell Davies in February 1981.