Margherita Torretta - De Gambarini- Complete Works for Keyboard (2024) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

A first-time piano recording for the surviving music by a neglected female composer of 18th-century London.
Despite her Italian name, Elisabetta de Gambarini (1731-1765) was born and lived in London, as the daughter of a well-connected Italian couple: her father a diplomat, her mother a singer. Elisabetta evidently inherited her mother’s musicianship, and made a name as a pianist, singer and later impresario and even conductor, at a time when such leadership and management roles in creative life were almost exclusively taken by men.
Her two printed collections of music were published in 1748, and therefore count as the work of a prodigiously talented teenager.
Opus 1 is a set of six sonatas, Opus 2 a collection of dances and independent pieces. In both cases, Elisabetta seems to have composed them with a pedagogical purpose in mind, or at least the profitable publishing industry for teaching pieces, catering to the affluent market of amateur musicians.
Gambarini must have been familiar with the sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti, but her music sings with a voice of its own. Her modulations add novelty, colour and pleasing texture; they are never arbitrary, fussy or predictably chromatic as in Paradisi’s sonatas. She avoids repetitive sequences and brings more harmonic precision and economy to her sonatas than Pescetti or Geminiani did in theirs.

TRACKLIST

1. Margherita Torretta - Tambourin (Lesson IV), Op. 2 No. 7
2. Margherita Torretta - Sonata in G Major, Op. 1 No. 1: I. Allegretto
3. Margherita Torretta - Sonata in G Major, Op. 1 No. 1: II. Siciliana
4. Margherita Torretta - Sonata in G Major, Op. 1 No. 1: III. Giga
5. Margherita Torretta - Andante in G Minor (Lesson II), Op. 2 No. 3
6. Margherita Torretta - Sonata in C Major, Op. 1 No. 5: I. Vivace
7. Margherita Torretta - Sonata in C Major, Op. 1 No. 5: II. Siciliana
8. Margherita Torretta - Sonata in C Major, Op. 1 No. 5: III. Spiritoso Assai
9. Margherita Torretta - Cariglion (Lesson V), Op. 2 No. 8
10. Margherita Torretta - Sonata in G Major, Op. 1 No. 4: I. Tempo di Gavotta
11. Margherita Torretta - Sonata in G Major, Op. 1 No. 4: II. March
12. Margherita Torretta - Sonata in G Major, Op. 1 No. 4: III. Non troppo Presto
13. Margherita Torretta - Lover Go and Calm Thy Sighs (Lesson VII), Op. 2 No. 13
14. Margherita Torretta - Sonata in F Major, Op. 1 No. 1: I. Allegro Moderato
15. Margherita Torretta - Sonata in F Major, Op. 1 No. 1: II. Adagio
16. Margherita Torretta - Sonata in F Major, Op. 1 No. 1: III. Minuet and Variations
17. Margherita Torretta - Minuet and Variations (Lesson III), Op. 2 No. 5
18. Margherita Torretta - Sonata in D Minor, Op. 1 No. 6: I. Allegro
19. Margherita Torretta - Sonata in D Minor, Op. 1 No. 6: II. Minuetto
20. Margherita Torretta - Sonata in D Minor, Op. 1 No. 6: III. Allegro Grazioso
21. Margherita Torretta - Lesson in G Major (Lesson VI), Op. 2 No. 11
22. Margherita Torretta - Sonata in D Major, Op. 2 No. 2: I. Grazioso
23. Margherita Torretta - Sonata in D Major, Op. 2 No. 2: II. Allegro Moderato
24. Margherita Torretta - Allegro moderato in B-Flat Major (Lesson I), Op. 2 No. 2
25. Margherita Torretta - Giga in D Major (Lesson VIII), Op. 2 No. 14



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