Boccherini’s Op 42 – these are the ‘opuses’ he classified himself, not the different numbers used by his publishers – includes three string quintets and one ‘quintettino’ (his own term for a smaller-scale piece); two were on the previous Vanbrugh CD from Hyperion (3/02), and the other two (G349 and G350) are here. These are works he rated highly among his large output, or so he said in a letter to his Paris publisher, the composer Ignaz Pleyel.

The Op 42 works here are all quite late, from 1789, and deeply tinged with the nostalgia characteristic of Boccherini, and typical of his late music in its tendency to make play with detailed little phrases, which he worries like a cat with a mouse. The earliest is G310, which has a delightfully playful opening movement, an elegant minuet, a subtly shaded Grave and a finale whose main theme seems to derive from the bounce of the bow across the cello strings. The quintettino is a gem, especially its grave little Andante affettuoso, marked ‘sotto voce’ and played here duly gently and sensitively.

G349, from Op 42, begins with another of his very subtly written movements, with many sustained notes and shifting textures and harmonies against them; this is an Andante, and the main Allegro comes third, with typical syncopations, energetic scales and passage-work, and the habitual minor inflections. The final item, the D major quintet, starts in a rather martial tone, and has some very brilliant violin writing in its first movement and eloquent music for the cello (Boccherini’s own instrument, of course) in the wistful Larghetto, which leads into a witty and ebullient finale in gavotte rhythm.

The tone of all this charming and delectable music is beautifully captured here by the Vanbrugh Quartet, with Richard Lester playing the first cello part. I hope they will go on to record many more of the fine pieces in this large and unduly neglected repertory.