Boccherini was the most important Italian representative of the Viennese classical style, writing in his own distinctive manner. The quartets represented here are excellent examples of his general style, combining melodic profundity with harmonic adventurousness. As with the music of Haydn, Boccherini’s compositions at times stand on the threshold of the nineteenth century, but at the same time never lose the courtly elegance of the eighteenth. The Quartetto Borciani, named after Paolo Borciani, first violin of the Quartetto Italiano, was founded in 1984 to perpetuate the tradition established by their legendary predecessors.