Italian composer and cellist who influenced the development of the string quartet as a musical form and who composed the first music for a quintet for strings, as well as a quintet with strings and piano. His approximately 500 works also include sacred music, symphonies, and concerti. Boccherini was primarily a composer of chamber music. He produced more than 100 quintets and quartets each, more than 50 trios, and more than 50 chamber works in other forms. The Cello Concerto in B-flat, Boccherini's best-known complete work, was actually arranged from two Boccherini concertos by the 19th-century composer and cellist Friedrich Grützmacher. Boccherini's well-known minuet is from his String Quintet in E Major.

As a composer Boccherini has often been compared to Joseph Haydn, usually to his disadvantage. A contemporary, Giovanni Puppo, characterised him as no more than an emasculated Haydn. But their qualities are of different kinds. It is true that his music often lacks Haydn's characteristic forward drive and virility, qualities which derive from a keen sense of form and symphonic development. Thus whereas Haydn's first movements usually centre upon the closely reasoned argument of their development sections, Boccherini's depend on their thematic material and the way in which it is presented and represented, and his development sections often lack a firm sense of direction and purpose. Concertante writing was of fundamental importance to Boccherini's music, and he obtained a wide variety of tone colours by writing high viola or cello parts (he was clearly influenced here by his own instrumental facility). His varied treatment of instrumental texture was one of the most characteristic features of his music. Whereas Haydn, with his emphasis on the dramatic nature of sonata form, was in the mainstream of musical development, Boccherini can be said to have represented a backwater. His concern was the production of smooth, elegant music: his favourite expression marks were soave (soft), con grazia (with grace), and dolcissimo (very sweetly). It is in his gentle warmth and superlative elegance - often with a hint of melancholy just below the surface - that Boccherini's most characteristic contribution is found.