Elizabeth de la Porte

Elizabeth de la Porte FRCM (born 1941) is a harpsichordist. During her performing career she made many public appearances, in the UK, continental Europe (Vienna, Geneva etc.), and her native South Africa. She was acclaimed for a wide-ranging repertoire that included Böhm, Rameau, François Couperin, Scarlatti and Handel, but she was praised above all for her playing of J. S. Bach and his six Partitas for solo harpsichord. At her debut in March 1972 she was hailed by the Daily Telegraph as "A mind that both contemplates and acts on intimate stylistic knowledge." Her Bach recording for Saga was reviewed in Records & Recording by John Duarte (March 1976) who wrote, "It is in the Partita in B minor that her playing reaches the proportions of grandeur. There is much to admire in de la Porte's playing, but above all its through line and motivation; she plays as a good orator speaks, and it would be a poor student who could not add to a score the long phrasing marks implied by these performances. It is not just that she sees the end of long phrases and sections from their outset; she carries you in one sweep from beginning to end; it's the wholeness of the music that she communicates, and the joy of it."

Elizabeth de la Porte was born at Johannesburg in South Africa on 15 September 1941, the daughter of William James Tomlinson and his wife, the singer Betsy de la Porte. For her schooling she attended Kingsmead College in Johannesburg. For her piano studies she went to Adolph Hallis, and for Bach and for theory to Stefan Zondagh. She was in her mid-teens when she played the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto for a South African radio broadcast; however her strongest affinities always lay with J. S. Bach. When she won the University of South Africa's Overseas Scholarship it was for her piano performance of Bach's C minor Partita.

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