“Did Boccherini ever write a piece of music that was less than delightful? If he did, it wasn’t a cello sonata - at least on the evidence of this disc. We don’t know for sure how many of these sonatas he wrote: Gérard, Boccherini’s Köchel, listed 34, and more recent discoveries bring the total to 42. In this second volume, Michal Kaňka, the cellist of the renowned Pražák Quartet, plays six, and he plays them beautifully, with a warm, singing tone and an elegance that bespeaks Boccherini’s galant style.

The son of a cellist and double bass player, Luigi Boccherini (1745-1805) quickly became famous as a child prodigy on the cello. He began his career at the age of thirteen, and the following year went to Vienna with his father, where they both worked at the court theatre. His time was divided between Vienna and his native city of Lucca until 1766, when he undertook a concert tour with the violinist Filippo Manfredi throughout Europe, staying more than a year in Paris before going to Spain, where Boccherini settled, working as a composer and cellist at court and becoming a prominent figure in the musical life of Madrid.