Composer, instrumentalist, singer, impresario and art dealer, Elisabetta de Gambarini was a defiantly independent musician, working successfully in the deeply patriarchal world of 18th-century London. Yet the career of this highly talented young woman was to end in tragedy after she endured domestic violence, estrangement and a scandalous diplomatic cover-up.
Her life had begun with many advantages. Born in the capital in 1731 to wealthy, well-connected Italian parents, Gambarini grew up in Mayfair. Her father, Count Carlo Gambarini, was counsellor to Frederick I of Sweden and a noted collector of fine art. Her mother, Giovanna Stradiotti, was an opera singer, keyboard player and teacher, who encouraged her daughter’s exceptional talents, enlisting the composer Francesco Geminiani to become one of her teachers.
As a composer, she was the first woman in…
