It was during Boccherini's time in Spain that he wrote this present set of 6 quintets for flute and strings, listed by the composer in his autograph catalogue as Op. 17, ‘opera piccola’, and dated 1773. Boccherini’s use of the diminutive reflects the intimate and small-scale nature of these works, each quintet being cast in two movements, in contrast to the more usual four-movement structure favoured by Boccherini’s north European contemporaries.