Rediscovering a Lost Composer: Elisabetta de Gambarini

Not all composers are lost with their manuscripts. Some composers are simply lost to the accretions of time: if they were active when many other composers were active, they might just be buried under the weight of the ages. For Elisabetta de Gambarini (1731–1765), born in London when the great lights of the late Baroque were active, including Handel, Geminiani, and the works of composers such as Scarlatti were available for sale in the city, one single composer with just three publications, it was easy to vanish.

Nathaniel Hone the Elder: Elisabetta de Gambarini, frontispiece to her Op. 2, 1748

Elisabetta de Gambarini, daughter of Count Charles Gambarini, Counselor to the Hessian Palatinate ruler Frederick I of Sweden. He was also a noted art collector and dealer. Her mother, Giovanna (Johanna) Stradiotti, was a London-based Italian opera singer, harpsichordist, and music teacher. Elisabetta first took the stage as a singer, participating in Handel’s Occasional Oratorio in 1746 at age 15. Although called a soprano, today she would be considered a mezzo-soprano, considering the range of the roles she sang. She created the Israelite Woman in Judas Maccabaeus in 1747 and may also have sung Asenath in Joseph and his Brethren the same year. Although her name appears in the performing scores of Samson and Messiah, her participation cannot be confirmed.

Her three publications were published in London, dating from 1748–1750, and include 6 Sets of Lessons for the harpsichord (1748), Lessons for the Harpsichord, Intermix’d with Italian and English Songs, op.2 (1748), and 12 English & Italian Songs for flute and basso continuo, op.3 (1750). Her works were aimed at the highest elements of society; her Op. 1 Lessons was dedicated to The Right Honourable The Lady Viscountess Howe of the Kingdom of Ireland and her Op. 2 set of Lessons aimed even higher, with a dedication to Frederick, Prince of Wales.

Nathaniel Hone the Elder: Elisabetta de Gambarini (cropped), 1748

A new recording by keyboardist Margherita Torretta brings us the Opp. 1 and 2 keyboard works by Gambarini as performed on piano. Torretta makes the argument that performing these hitherto lost works on a familiar keyboard, rather than on a harpsichord, brings them into a range of accessibility that the older keyboard may not have. Be that as it may, the ringing sound of a piano is quite different than the crisp brilliance of harpsichord and many of Gambarini’s sound innovations, such as the balance between melody and accompaniment may be lost.

Margherita Torretta

Elisabetta de Gambarini: Piano Sonata No. 1 – I. Allegretto (Margherita Torretta, piano)

The typical period expectations of improvisation and embellishment, particularly in repeated sections, are used here, and other effects include ‘octave doubling, transposing the melody to a different octave, adding thirds, short scale runs, note and chord fills to augment melodic lines, and brief cadenzas. Other improvisational effects include adding to, or modifying, existing ornamentation (trills, turns, appoggiaturas, grace notes, accents, staccato), altering tempo, dynamics, duration of rests and note values, or playing rubato or ad libitum with freedom of expression’. We have to trust the taste of the performer when delivering the work, and it comes through clearly. The thoughtful and developed performance does credit to both the composer and performer, whatever quibbles one might have about the performance vehicle.

Elisabetta de Gambarini: Lessons for the Harpsichord Intermix’d with Italian and English Songs, Op. 2 – VIII. Cariglion (Margherita Torretta, piano)

Although Gambarini had models in the works of the finest English and European composers, she was able to create her own stylistic path. She avoids Scarlatti’s Spanish-style touches, and although she follows the model of Alberti in her creation of walking bass lines and broken-chord sequences, she creates a much more lyrical world above them. Her works show ‘more harmonic precision’ than comparable works by even her teacher Geminiani.

As the talented daughter of not only a powerful political father but a musically connected mother, Elisabetta was not only active as a singer but also as a concert promoter, talent recruiter, managing director, and conductor, positions that we would see as normal today, but which were largely the activities of men, not women, in her day. She was the first British composer to publish a collection of works for keyboard instruments, her Op. 1.

There are many holes in her biography, most notably from her last publication in 1750. At her father’s death, she inherited his art collection, which she used to support her house concerts and promoted not only music but also the art auctions that supported them.

What’s of interest to modern researchers is her marriage to French citizen Étienne (Stephen) Chazell on 20 March 1764 at the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields and what happened afterwards. In the legal statement about the case, Stephen Chazell, ‘his Excellent Monsr. Le Comte de Guerchy’s Master of Horse’ was arrested in the Count’s house after a complaint against him by Elisabetta’s mother for abuse. Or, to quote the lawyer’s deposition, ‘her husband, very soon after the marriage, beat and treated his wife in a very bad and brutal manner in so much that the neighbourhood has been frequently alarmed by her cries of murder from the windows of her apartment on those occasions’. All depositions in the case were made by Elisabetta’s 70-year-old mother, with whom the couple lived.

In addition to the charges of beating detailed above, other depositions said that he’d tried to burn down the house while the family slept and that ‘She having been several times obliged to abscond from her house for fear of his putting her to death or maiming her;’. Because of the fear of danger to her life, the magistrate, Thomas Kynaston, Esq., ordered the husband’s arrest.

The problem with arresting a member of the household of the French Ambassador, which was the position Le Conte de Guerchy held, was that political privilege overwhelmed the law. The attempt to arrest a French citizen on French property, as the Ambassador’s residence would have been considered, was a major error on the part of the constabulary. The Ambassador’s men rescued Chazell from the English constables, imprisoned them in a room, tore up the arrest warrant, and permitted Chazell to escape to France. The reaction from Paris was swift: the French government threatened to revoke the powers of the English ambassador. In the end, Elisabetta’s problem devolved into an apology from the magistrate, Kynaston, to Guerchy. The whole matter of the absconding abusive husband just vanished.

After her marriage, Elisabetta only gave one concert, a month after the wedding, on 27 April 1764, under the name of ‘Mrs Chazal’.

Just 11 months later, a very understated death notice appeared in the news, ‘Deaths: Mrs. Chazal (late Miss Gambarini) at her house in the corner of Castle Court, in the Strand, who used to exhibit pictures at the place’. Her cause of death is unknown. No mention is made of her music life, her years of music making, her connections with the best musical minds in London. She just vanishes.

Rediscover Elisabetta de Gambarini through the new recording by Margherita Torretta. A brief video by the artist on the composer can be found at: