«The quintet describes the music heard in the streets of Madrid at night, starting with the bells tolling for the Ave Maria and ending with the tattoo.» It was with this sentence that Luigi Boccherini prefaced the most unusual of his hundreds of chamber music works, the «Musica notturna delle strade di Madrid» for string quintet. The Italian composer was employed as a musician at the Spanish court. When his patron, Infante Don Luis, married a commoner and was banished from Madrid by the royal family to Las Arenas Avila, a castle far removed from the capital, Boccherini went with him and composed in rural seclusion from that time onwards.

The «Musica notturna» may have been a token of Boccherini’s appreciation for the Infante – a musical reminder in remote Avila of the distant and beloved city of Madrid. Playfully the darkness comes: the «Musica notturna» concludes the concert by Accademia Ottoboni dedicated to Boccherini. It is preceded by other quintets and a sextet by the Spanish court musician in the Spanish Hall. Spanish rhythms and dances, which served the Italian lover of melodies and delicate sounds as inspiration in his new home, feature repeatedly in the programme. The rousing fandango also found its way into courtly chamber music in this manner.