Giovanni Paisiello (1740-1816) was born in the Italian town of Taranto and educated at the Naples Conservatory. For several decades, he was one of the leading opera composers of Europe, spending eight years in St Petersburg at the invitation of Catherine the Great and three more in Paris at the invitation of Napoleon. However, for the greater part of his life, he lived and worked in Naples. He considered opera his métier but did not entirely ignore chamber music, writing some nine string quartets and several works for piano in addition to these quartets for flute and strings.
These six quartets for flute and strings, Op.23, clearly not Paisiello's 23rd published work since they date from 1800 when the composer was 60 years old, appear to have been written in Naples in anticipation of his arrival in Paris at the invitation of Napoleon. Paisiello would have been well aware of the burgeoning market of Parisian amateur players and their tastes, and these quartets were written with this in mind. The first five have two movements. The sixth quartet has but one.
Certainly, these quartets can stand on their own but are also important from an historical standpoint as they are an indication of musical tastes around the start of the 19th century, both in France and Italy. They are suitable for concert performance and home music making. We have reprinted the original, and as far as we know, only, edition of these works from Hamburg in 1800.