Giovanni Battista Gervasio was a significant personality in the musical scene of ‘stile galante’ of the second half of 18th century; composer, virtuoso and teacher, he studied and improved the fourstrings mandolin, which was first built in Naples in that period. Thanks to him this instrument became popular and technically refined as it is nowadays. The aim of this recording is to reproduce the tinkling sonorities of these compositions. In order to obtain thoroughly this particular natural sonority, we have decided to “capture” the natural reverberations of the environment without ignoring the sound of each single instrument, so that the phrasing is intelligible. We have played an original mandolin built in 1764 and a copy of an Italian harpsichord of the 18th century. We have chosen to realise the continuo with harpsichord alone, considering that these two instruments have a similar way to produce sound. This is the first complete recording of all the sonatas for mandolin by Giovanni Battista Gervasio.