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The Venetian-born composer Nicoḷ Pasquali (1717/18–1757), who spent most of his short career in England (London, Norfolk), Ireland (Dublin) and Scotland (Edinburgh), is today mostly known for his much-praised primers on continuo playing from figured bass and fingering on the harpsichord. He was, however, also a gifted and highly original composer in many instrumental and vocal genres, which ranged from harpsichord pieces and sonatas for solo violin and four-part strings to cantatas, masques and oratorios. Tantalizingly, many of his compositions, especially the large-scale vocal ones, survive only in the form of extracted individual movements, but his debut publication, a set of six technically challenging violin sonatas, and also a posthumously published set of twelve concerto-like sonatas for orchestral strings, are preserved complete.
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