One of the true masters of Italian music of the Classical period lived for an impressive 62 years and wrote hundreds of pieces of music. Boccherini was almost pre-destined to take an interest in music. His family home was often full of performers; his father was a cellist and double bass player, who was delighted to see Boccherini Junior following a similar musical route to his own. As well as being a fine composer, Boccherini excelled as a cellist – which explains why he wrote so many concertos for the instrument. Some scholars are rather unkind about Boccherini’s music: although he composed a very large number of works (30 symphonies, nearly a hundred string quartets, and plenty more besides) they suggest it’s a case of quantity over qualityBoccherini’s music has been used in all sorts of unlikely places, including on the soundtrack to the film Master and Commander: Far Side of the World, which features one of his string quintets. In the late 20th-century, the popularization of Boccherini’s music was due in no small part to the Boccherini Quartet, who introduced many audiences to the composer’s string quartets for the very first time.