of compositions are 20 chamber symphonies, 2 octets, 16 sextets, 125 string quartets, 60 string trios, 21 violin sonatas, 6 cello sonatas, 6 cello concertos, 2 operas, a Christmas concerto and a few masses. Natural melody and fluency of instrumental writing mark his music. He had a profound admiration for the music of Haydn, Boccherini's style was so close to Haydn's that the affinity gave to the rise to saying "Boccherini is the wife of Haydn" (Slonimsky 184).Boccherini style became increasingly personal and even distinctive over the 44 years in which he composed, to such an extent that in his late music he sometimes seems to be repeating himself. The earliest trios and quartets are in standard Italian chamber music style apart from their frequent use of the cello in its tenor register and an unusually ornate melodic style. Other features of rhythm and texture later to become significant characteristics are seen only in embryo. Early influences on Boccherini's style are hard to specify. "He must have been acquainted with works by such Italian composers as G. B. Sammartini and Nardini; in Vienna he must have encountered the music of men like Wagenseil and Monnl; in Paris he must have heard music by the Mannheim composers as well as such locel men as Gossec and Schobert" (Talbot 494). But it would be hard to pinpoint the influence of such men on Boccherini's music; his chamber music is particular. By the works of 1769-70 his technique was fully assured his style thereafter changed only gradually, graining in freedom and unorthodoxy to a point where his latest works (from 1790 on) show little regard for conventions of form or tonal schemes. Some of he works of these late years suggest a growing inwardness of style, a preoccupation with delicate effects of harmony, texture or rhythmic figuration at the expense of melody or formal integrity; and it is natural to think that Boccherini's isolation from the main musical crosscurrents of Europ...
