Here’s an interesting discovery from an ever-enterprising pianist. Elisabetta de Gambarini was a pupil of Geminiani, a protégée of Handel who sang lead roles in his operas, a keyboard player, possibly also a painter – and the composer of the earliest keyboard music written by a woman to be published in England. Her Six Sets of Lessons for the Harpsichord appeared in 1748 with an illustrious register of subscribers; this was followed shortly afterwards by Lessons for the Harpsichord Intermix’d with Italian and English Songs, its frontispiece a portrait of Gambarini by Nathaniel Hone. These two volumes contain her complete known keyboard output, which is presented here in its entirety.

The Sets of Lessons (Op 1) is in fact a series of sonatas, while the Lessons for the Harpsichord (Op 2) interleaves single keyboard movements with songs. Nothing outstays its welcome; in the sonatas, the opening movement is usually the weightiest, coming in at around three minutes, and binary dance forms predominate. Gambarini is in total command of her material, with a gift for clarity (most pieces are essentially two-voice inventions), an ear for textural variety and a way with a tune. All of the pieces are admirable examples of the type of keyboard music that was popular around the middle of the 18th century, and while most of them remain in a fairly constrained tonal range, there are touches of harmonic piquancy in, say, the opening Allegro moderato of the Sonata in F, Op 1 No 3, or the closing Giga from the second book. And in slow movements, Gambarini can distil a mood of rapt pathos that may put one in mind of CPE Bach in his most lyrical mood: the G minor Andante from Op 2 is a prime example. Elsewhere, the opening Tambourin is a thrilling call to attention, while the closing Allegro moderato of the D major Sonata, Op 1 No 2, revels in a range of trumpet-like figures.

Margherita Torretta herself is just as remarkable, having made a splash in 2020 with her debut album of Scarlatti sonatas and published her first novel last year. The transparency and precision of her playing are ideal for music of such simple directness, and her intelligently applied ornamentation always draws the ear in music that may not be earth-shattering but is always appealing and invites repeated listening.

This review originally appeared in the SPRING 2025 issue of International Piano