Classical Spanish chamber music is a world unto itself. If you are looking for an introduction to the music of Luigi Boccherini and Juan Cristósom de Arriaga, no one does it better than La Ritirata. During the Iberian Academy, the ensemble will present material recorded on, among others, the Fandango album. Josetxu Obregón, the project leader, will also be one of the teachers of the festival master class.

Fandango – a traditional Spanish dance based on a triple rhythm and using the sound of castanets – was performed in stylised versions in the 18th century as part of various stage works that entertained the Spanish aristocracy. When  Luigi Boccherini, a native of Tuscany, arrived in Madrid at the age of twenty-five, he began working as a cellist in one of the opera companies performing for the royal court. He soon became the most important classical composer on the Iberian Peninsula. As a distinguished composer of chamber music, he left behind approximately one hundred string quintets, as many quartets, and works for other instruments.

Boccherini developed an idiosyncratic type of quintet, featuring two cellos. A virtuoso of this instrument, the Italian wanted to accompany the traditional quartet line-up in the service of his patron. There were even occasions – as in the case of the Quintet in B flat major – when the double bass took over the role of the lowest-ranging instrument. The Quintet in D major, with two cellos, dates from a similar period. Its second movement is a stylised form of fandango (with a musician playing castanets!), which also became the title of the La Ritirata album. Clearly different in its form is the light minuet from the Trio in G major.

Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga, from a younger generation, did not achieve the same level of European renown as Boccherini. This was due to the premature death of the hard-working composer, who did not live to see his twentieth birthday. Like Josetxu Obregón, de Arriaga was born in Bilbao, Basque Country. The 19th-century composer left behind, among other works, three string quartets recorded by La Ritirata in 2014. At the heart of the first of these, the vibrant Quartet in A major, are brilliant variations – a showcase of the extraordinary abilities of the Paris-trained composer.