Herald AV Publications

HAVPCD244 – Elizabeth Gambarini Complete works for harpsichord

The London-born Elizabeth Gambarini presents, viewed retrospectively, a brief but none the less interesting foretaste of an 18th-century British phenomenon: the educated lady of good family achieving a significant reputation in a field not at this time usually associated with one of her sex. Despite a relatively short life, she pursued an active and successful musical career, and gains historical importance as the first woman to publish keyboard music in Britain. Of the many lesser figures working in London’s 18th-century music life, Gambarini stands out as someone forging new ways. As a member of an immigrant family she established herself as a Londoner, as a woman in a man’s world she acquired the status of a professional musician rather than that of a mere singer, and as a composer of keyboard music she espoused and mastered the galant style that presages the popular musical idioms of the ensuing decades.

HAVPCD240 – A Thousand Years in Thy Sight A celebration of sacred music for the Millennium

The sequence of music on this recording represents sacred choral compositions across Western Europe spanning the past thousand years. It celebrates the development and rich diversity of musical style and language over the centuries. No attempt has been made to cover every corner of a vast repertoire – an impossible task in an hour of music. However, each century is covered by at least one composition, with geographical as well as stylistic variety. Perhaps this collection also speaks of a widening vision of musical repertoire in our English cathedrals.