Last year's bicentenary of the death of Luigi Boccherini did not make a big noise, but then this is a composer who has long been underrated, a victim of the historical view which sees the High Classical style of Haydn and Mozart as the naturally-to-be-desired goal of all musical developments in the mid- to late 18th century. Next to them, Boccherini doubtless appears lightweight, his music matching neither their intellectual achievement nor their depth of expression; but to criticise him for not always doing what they do is to miss the point. His quintets for two violins, viola and two cellos are works of exquisite grace and refinement, and if their composer was happy not to be firing off contrapuntal starbursts or involving us in tough developmental battles, then that is something we as listeners can learn to respect and even celebrate. It is not as if he did not have an expressive voice of his own; quite apart from odd hints of fandango (Boccherini spent over half his life in Spain), two of the quintets on this new disc maintain a leisurely but affecting minor-key melancholy with effortless ease and consistency. He has been called “Haydn's wife”, but a better description might just be “Schubert's aunt”.

Ensemble Explorations have picked three quintets not currently available elsewhere, all of them composed in the 1770s. Using modern instruments, they play with a certain amount of edge and transparency, and an overall gentleness of touch. As such they come somewhere between the surface sheen of the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet's recent Boccherini recordings for Hyperion and the darker and more febrile qualities shown by Europa Galante on Virgin. Whatever the approach, the music remains hard to resist.