Elegance, exuberance and one remarkable woman: the Academy of Ancient Music travels to Georgian London to discover the lost world of musical innovator, Elisabetta da Gambarini

Elisabetta da Gamberini

Handel, Elisabetta de Gambarini, Geminiani, Carlo Tessarini; Mhairi Lawson, Academy of Ancient Music led by Bojan Čičić; Milton Court Concert Hall
Reviewed by Tony Cooper, 12 March 2026

The Academy of Ancient Music plunges deep into the colourful world of Elisabetta da Gambarini – composer, virtuoso and entrepreneur as well as the first woman ever to publish music in England

The Academy of Ancient Music’s tribute to Elisabetta da Gambarini and her contemporaries proved an enjoyable and unforgettable show with an excellent programme exploring the vibrant musical landscape of Georgian London showcasing the influence of immigrant musicians and the pioneering role of women engaged in 18th-century music-making.  

Relating mostly to the late baroque and classical music period, Gambarini (who lived for only 33 years from 1731 to 1765) achieved distinction by being an all-round musician performing on and composing for a variety of instruments as well as voice. Her compositions were known to reflect that of vocal work instead of instrumental patterns.  

Born on 7th September 1731 in Holles Street, Marylebone, Elisabetta Gambarini’s father, Charles Gambarini, acted as Counsellor to the Landgrave of Hessen-Kassel. He died in 1754 while his wife Joanna (Giovanna Paula) Stradiotti died in 1774. A nobleman from Lucca, Italy, her father published A Description of the Earl of Pembroke’s Pictures 1731 while her mother, of similar status from Dalmatia, is thought to have been a tutor to the nobility. 

The third of four children, Elisabetta (who on 20th March 1764 married Etienne Chazal at St Martin-in-the-Fields) was the only sibling surviving to maturity. She died at her home in Castle Court, Strand, in the parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields, on 9th February 1765 and was interred at St James’ Church, Piccadilly, five days later – 14th February. 

Although there’s no specific information regarding her formal musical education there is speculation that Gambarini may have studied with Francesco Geminiani, composer of The Enchanted Forest, a baroque orchestral work inspired by Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata often performed with dance thereby depicting a mystical perilous forest. 

Beginning her career singing Handel’s An Occasional Oratorio, Gambarini also took part and performed as the First Israelite Woman in the first performance in Judas Maccabaeus while her name also appears in scores of Handel’s Samson and Messiah. 

By 1748, her reputation allowed her to publish music in her own right therefore Gambarini became the first female composer in Britain to publish a collection of keyboard music with The Six Sets of Lessons for the Harpsichord dedicated to Viscountess Howe of the Kingdom of Ireland. Later in the same year she published Lessons for the Harpsichord Intermix’d with Italian and English Songs dedicated to the Prince of Wales.  

Throughout her career, Gambarini performed at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket as well as at the Concert Room, Dean Street, Soho – now premises of Soho House. A charitable person, too, Gambarini often staged benefit concerts appearing as composer, harpsichordist, organist and singer.  

Thankfully, there was an increased interest of women participating in music-making in London in the 18th century. Many were of noble status and it’s commonly known that during the classical period the number of women involved in domestic music-making increased significantly because of the popularity of singing and playing the piano.  

Music was considered a social accomplishment for women which reflected on the gentility of one’s family gently filling their leisure time driving away boredom and dissatisfaction and in the case of a young women it could well be an asset in procuring a husband. 

Amateur musicians as well as fully-trained professionals were participating in concerts while young ladies became involved in music by intimate concerts in their homes and later as court musicians. They sang and played the lute or the harpsichord for their private amusement and occasionally retained a small quota of musicians for their own entertainment. 

By their nature the lute and the harpsichord were sufficient in supporting the player’s voice.  And playing bowed-string instruments was less appealing because of the unladylike position required for playing the larger bowed-string instruments. Therefore, many women took up the smallest member of the viol family, the high-pitched instrument, pardessus. 

As the 18th century progressed, the social class of women who composed music (and what they chose to compose) dramatically changed. Whereas ladies in the 17th century wrote simple songs for their families and friends, the daughters of these composers gradually began composing in more ambitious genres such as sacred and secular cantatas as well as opera, ballet and even oratorio.  

The greater participation of women in music, traditionally associated exclusively with men, is largely attributable to political and social changes across Europe in the early- to mid-18th century. Significant and far-reaching developments in music are also credited to the invention of the piano. 

From its inception the lied constituted a type of chamber music and as such fitted comfortably in a domestic environment, a setting in which women had long been accepted as performers in stark contrast to public places of entertainment which were ‘off-limits’ to them.  

However, there were no ‘off-limits’ to anyone in the Academy of Ancient Music’s fine and uplifting concert at Milton Court, admirably led by Croatian-born violinist, Bojan Čičić, a specialist in the late-16th/19th-century repertoire. 

With Handel’s well-loved aria from Part I of his famed oratorio, Judas Maccabaeus (‘Pious orgies, pious airs’) they opened the show in a grand style witnessing the renowned coloratura soprano, Mhairi Lawson, putting in an unhurried and detailed performance perfectly fitting this solemn reflective piece telling of an Israelite woman’s emotional and spiritual response of Jewish oppression and their plea to the Almighty.  

The lyrics speak of holy, solemn and quiet rituals (pious airs) and respectful mourning (decent sorrow) rising to God but the word ‘orgies’ used in this sense, may I add, refers to passionate acts of worship rather than its modern-day connotation. 

Orchestrated music from Elisabetta de Gambarini’s Six Sets of Lessons for the Harpsichord followed – the first collection of keyboard works ever published by a woman in the British Isles. For this performance by AAM, they were offered in attractive new arrangements by Rachel Stroud who, present at the concert, brought out the lightness and clear tonality of Gambarini’s inimitable style of writing. 

Altogether, they provided a rather nice collection of four very agreeable pieces comprising ‘March’, 2nd movement from Sonata IV in G major; ‘Grazioso’, 1st movement from Sonata II in D major; ‘Siciliana Andante’, 2nd movement from Sonata V in A minor and the last movement from Sonata II in D major which found Bojan Čičić and his band of followers on top form. 

The baroque master – who’s none other than George Frideric Handel – bounced back on the bill with a rather grand and fulfilling item from Judas Maccabaeus entitled ‘Come, ever-smiling liberty’ to a libretto by Thomas Morell featuring Mhairi Lawson, who, incidentally, was soloist in all of the items stated on the programme by Handel while Francesco Geminiani’s Concerto Grosso in B flat major magnificently brought to an end the first half of a very entertaining and engaging concert. A virtuosic Italian violinist, composer and theorist of standing, Geminiani is well known for his treatise The Art of Playing on the Violin.  

A late-baroque multi-movement orchestral work for strings, Geminiani’s Concerto Grosso is characterized by its complex multi-part structure in the form of a ‘galant’, a light, elegant and accessible 18th-century musical style that offered a departure from the strict counterpoint of earlier baroque music favouring lighter more song-like melodies punctuated by a host of ornamental and expressive passages and simple lyrical melodies. 

Carlo Tessarini’s three-movement work – Ouverture in D major ‘La Stravaganza’ – features bar after bar of spirited virtuosic writing for strings and continuo and in the safe hands of AAM’s colourful bunch of players they most definitely captured the composer’s bright and energetic writing in a marvellous performance thereby representing the tradition and virtuosity of the Venetian school while Handel’s lyrical and uplifting aria ‘O liberty, thou choicest treasure’ from An Occasional Oratorio – originally intended for Judas Maccabaeus – represented and supported the Hanoverian monarchy.  

A largely patriotic non-dramatic work it was composed in haste to celebrate the crushing of the 1745 Jacobite rebellion led by Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) in a final attempt to reclaim the British throne for the Catholic Stuart dynasty from the Protestant House of Hanover.  

Adding to the overall enjoyment of AAM’s thrilling concert was the inclusion of Carlo Tessarini’s Violin Concerto in A minor, a work forming part of a collection of 12 published works circa 1730 characterized by the Italian virtuoso style of playing influenced by Vivaldi in which Bojan Čičić showed off supremely well capturing, too, the essence, spirit and fine detail of the intricate style of 18th-century Italian violin writing.  

The last items from Elisabetta de Gambarini came from Lessons and Songs featuring ‘Behold and Listen’ (Song I); Canzonetta: ‘Se mai fosse la mia forte’ (Song IV); Minuet in A major (Lesson III) 

A gentle light-hearted English song ‘Behold and Listen’ forms part of a collection dedicated to Frederick, Prince of Wales while the song – highlighting the Italianate vocal style of the era – was published in 1748 as part of a collection that helped cement Gambarini’s reputation as a prominent female composer in 18th-century London.  

A wonderful vocal piece also came with ‘Se mai fosse la mia forte’, specifically identified as a ‘canzonetta’ included in Gambarini’s XII English & Italian Songs for a German Flute and Thorough Bass. Often described in the context of Gambarini’s ‘English Impresaria’ repertoire, the work features both Italian and English influences and was extremely pleasing. 

Forming part of Lessons for the Harpsichord, Gambarini’s Minuet in A major offered a nice piece for harpsichord in a collection published during her lifetime. A baroque-style courtly dance it was played with such a graceful and moderate tempo and perfectly fitted the orchestra’s musical intelligence and prowess. 

The last ‘shout’ in what was an excellent programme was gifted to Handel with the triumphal ‘March’ from Judas Maccabaeus performed triumphally by AAM whose players were relishing the occasion judging by their body language. 

A separate full-length oratorio Joseph and His Brethren, composed by Handel three years earlier than Judas Maccabaeus in 1743 to a libretto by James Miller, tells the Old Testament story from Genesis focusing on Joseph’s time in Egypt, his reconciliation with his brothers and his reunion with his father, Jacob. 

The work’s renowned for being a humane biblical family drama rather than a heroic military story and harbours the lovely and inviting aria ‘Prophetic raptures swell my breast’ heard in the last act representing the joyous ‘conquering hero’ theme within this rhythmic and triumphant work written for the character, Asenath.  

Magnificently sung by Ms Lawson, her virtuosic coloratura passages were pleasurable as ever thus punctuating a dazzling showpiece expressing the character’s joyful and divinely-inspired intuition that the current troubles everyone is facing will soon pass with better days on the horizon. 

In his infinite wisdom, Handel added a musical pun towards the end of the oratorio focusing on the word ‘swell’ utilizing the classical-singing technique ‘messa di voce’ where a vocalist sustains a single pitch beginning very softly gradually swelling to a loud volume and decreasing back to the original volume.  

An exciting piece, for sure, it’s peppered by a host of precise and rapid vocal runs which Ms Lawson took all in her stride. Her vocal quality, breath control and evenness of tone was paramount to the overall enjoyment of her engaging performance especially in the aria’s fast-moving passages while the delicate moments which build to the powerful and forceful climax was truly magic thus ending a thoroughly brilliant concert by the Academy of Ancient Music and, indeed, a brilliant night in the tranquil and appealing ambience of Milton Court Concert Hall. Hurrah!  

Handel: Judas Maccabaeus, HWV63 (1746) Overture: ‘Pious orgies’
Elisabetta de Gambarini: orchestrated music from ‘Six Sets of Lessons for the Harpsichord’, Op.1 (c.1747): ‘March’, 2nd movement from Sonata IV in G major; Grazioso, 1st movement from Sonata II in D major; Siciliana Andante, 2nd movement from Sonata V in A minor; last movement from Sonata II in D major (arr. Rachel Stroud)
Handel: Judas Maccabaeus, HWV63 ‘Come, ever-smiling liberty’
Francesco Geminiani: Concerto Grosso in B flat major, Op.7, No.6 (1746)
Carlo Tessarini: Ouverture in D major ‘La Stravaganza’, Op.4 (1736)
Handel: ‘O liberty’ from An Occasional Oratorio, HWV62
Carlo Tessarini: Violin Concerto in A minor, Op.1, No.7 (1716)
Elisabetta de Gambarini: Lessons and Songs, Op.2 (1748): ‘Behold and Listen’ (Song I); Canzonetta: ‘Se mai fosse la mia forte’ (Song IV); Minuet in A major (Lesson III)
Handel: ‘March’ from Judas Maccabaeus, HWV63
Handel: ‘Prophetic raptures’ from Joseph and His Brethren, HWV59 (1744)