The Violinist of Venice (2 page)

The next day, not being able to use the same excuse, I took every chance I could to barricade myself in my bedchamber and silently practice my fingering, as well as shifting positions. What had taken me years to learn as a child came back to me quickly, as though the knowledge had lain sleeping in my mind, waiting for me to call upon it again.

When the day of my lesson came, I feigned a return of my headache after my maid had dressed me, begging to be left alone again for the afternoon. As soon as she was gone, I slipped on my hooded cloak and a Carnevale half mask of white lace—Easter had long since passed and Carnevale resumed again—and slipped out of my rooms. I carefully locked the door behind me—my heart swelling in my throat at the thought of my father finding out—and trembling with fear, with excitement, made my way down the back staircase and out the rear door into the street that ran behind the palazzo. I saw no one, and I was certain no one saw me.

I was foolhardy, perhaps, but the burning flame that music kindled in me, once lit, could not be ignored, for fear that it would consume me.

I was thankful that I had left myself plenty of time to get to the maestro's house, as I made several wrong turns along the way. To say that Venice was a maze of narrow walkways, streets, bridges, and small waterways running off the Grand Canal was an understatement. I had never been out, unescorted, among the common people, and it took me some time to make my way through the crowds as they pushed and shoved all about me, on their way to the markets at the Rialto, to their employment, to Mass.

I crossed the same bridge I had a few nights ago, and today the water beneath it sparkled a jewel-bright green as the sun shone on it. It was far too early in the year for the heat to bring with it the stink of the canals and all the rubbish they contained, so one could smell only the faintest hint of the sea throughout the city.

Once I arrived, I knocked twice before letting myself in, knowing that he would be expecting me. As I removed my mask, he came down the staircase at the rear of the room, dressed this time in a less worn-looking priest's cassock. His unruly red hair was neatly combed and had been tied back with a piece of black cord. “Signorina Adriana,” he greeted me, smiling. “I have been looking forward to beginning your musical instruction today.”

Apparently the maestro was much more personable when one did not unexpectedly burst in upon him late at night, I thought wryly. “I thank you for such kind words, maestro,” I said. “I, too, have been looking forward to this day.”

“How long before you must depart?” he asked, somewhat awkwardly.

“I must be back within two hours, no later,” I answered.

“Very good,” he said. “Let us begin, then, so that we may make the most of our time.”

He produced the spare violin which he had promised for my use—not so fine as the one I had stolen from my brother, yet it was clear that this one had been played a bit more—and placed it in my hands. He began by asking me to play as many scales as I knew, and I obliged, pleased that even in the course of my limited practicing I had been able to recall most of them. After the scales, we moved on to arpeggios, and I was able to play them nearly perfectly, but for a few notes that went slightly sharp.

“Do not hold the bow so tightly,” he admonished, stopping me in the middle of one arpeggio. He placed his fingers on top of mine and gently loosened their grip. He gave me a crooked sort of smile. “It is not going anywhere, you know.”

I nodded and relaxed my fingers, knowing there was no way that I could explain to the maestro that, for me, each moment with the violin was a stolen one.

He stepped back and motioned for me to play the arpeggio over again. This time, the bow slid much more smoothly over the strings, and the sound that resulted was much brighter and more vibrant, and the pitch did not falter. I smiled to let him know I heard the difference.

Once we finished with the arpeggios, he asked me to return to the song I had played for him two evenings ago. “I would like to hear you play that again, if you will, signorina,” he said. “As much of it as you can remember.”

I obeyed, placing the bow on the strings and beginning the song. I closed my eyes briefly as I felt the music begin to fill the air around me, falling with feather-light touches onto my skin.

Not halfway into the song, he stopped me, again placing a gentle hand on my shoulder to get my attention. When I opened my eyes, he was standing quite near me. “Straighten your wrist,” he said. He reached out and let his fingers encircle the slender bones of my left wrist, pressing lightly on the back of my hand, which had bent at an angle. “This must be perfectly straight in order to properly support the instrument, and make the fingering easier.”

This time, the simple touch of his hand on my wrist caused a heated flush to spread from my cheeks down to my chest. My embarrassment as I realized this no doubt only caused the color that had risen in my skin to deepen.

Dio mio, I snapped at myself,
he is a priest. Get hold of yourself, Adriana.

“Do you realize,” he was saying, even as I struggled to compose myself, “that when you were playing the scales or the arpeggios, your wrist was perfectly straight and your posture correct? Yet the moment you began to play this song, your posture changed.”

“Ah,” I responded. “I had not realized, no.”

He smiled and stepped back. “I thought not. Otherwise you would not be doing it, no? But I think when you are playing something more … formal and structured, shall we say, like a scale, you hold yourself more rigidly, more controlled. Then, when you begin to play a melody, you seek to play the music itself, and not just the notes. You try to get at the emotion of the piece, at what it is saying, and in so doing allow your technique to fall away.”

I bit my lip, chagrined by my lapse, but also feeling rather exposed and defenseless. How had he managed to deduce all of that from just a few measures of a melody? “My apologies. I must try to correct that in the future.”

“No, no,” the maestro hurriedly contradicted. “You misunderstand me. In a violin player, in a true musician, that is exactly what one wants. I can teach you to have the most superb, flawless technique imaginable, yet the emotion I cannot teach. If you cannot reach the emotion of the music on your own, then there is nothing I can do. It is this that separates the true musicians, the true artists, from the mere … instrumentalists.” As he spoke, his pale skin became slightly flushed, and it was clear to which category Vivaldi himself belonged.

I heard the words tumbling from my mouth before I could stop them. “Would you play something for me?”

His lips parted slightly in surprise as he silently regarded me.

I found myself stammering, “It is just, as I told you, everyone says that you are the finest violinist in Venice, yet I have never heard you play, and I…” I trailed off, unable to tell him what I really wanted to say:
I want to hear for myself if you are all that they say you are, if you are really that skilled, that brilliant. I want to know if we are both speaking the same language, for I think we are.

The surprise vanished from his face, and with a quick nod he crossed the room and removed his violin from its case on his desk. He set the instrument into position, lifted his bow, and began to play.

Oh, the music that came pouring from the Red Priest's violin. Though he was the only one playing, the music seemed to swell and build and fill the entire room, until it sounded as though it must be coming from a full orchestra, instead of just one man. The piece he played was both rapid and lively, yet there was a passionate, desperate edge to it. And for all the music's strident sort of quickness, he played it smoothly, so that the sound was rich and full.

And what a sound it was. It did not seem possible that an ordinary violin, played by a seemingly ordinary man, was capable of singing with such beauty. And I thought that if one could somehow
hear
pure gold, this was exactly what it would sound like.

It called to mind the tale of Orfeo and how his music had been able to make the very rocks and trees move and dance. I had always thought it a silly story, yet hearing Vivaldi play, I believed, if just for a moment, that such a thing was possible.

I do not know how long he played; it seemed that he played forever, the glorious melody circling back on itself again and again, without end. My heart seemed to speed up, so that it beat in time with the music.

Yet when he played the final notes and removed his bow from the strings, I felt as though it had not been nearly long enough, and that I could have listened to him play for an eternity.

As soon as he stopped, his attention returned to me. I found myself staring at him silently. And even though I feared he was misinterpreting my reaction, I could not summon any words to accurately describe what I was feeling.

Finally, as though he could no longer bear the silence, he spoke. “And so?” he asked, his voice echoing dully off the walls. “Do I live up to your expectations?”

My voice came out scratchy and unused. “What
was
that?”

His body stiffened as he misunderstood my meaning. “It is part of one of my own compositions.”

“It was magnificent,” I gushed. “I don't think I have ever heard anything more beautiful.”

Relaxing, he chuckled as he put his violin back into its case. “You do me too much honor, signorina.”

“It is true!” I insisted. “Surely you know without my telling you that it was—”

“Very well,” he interrupted, smiling. “I shall accept your praise, if you insist. I am rather fond of that piece myself, truth be told.”

I shook my head. “I do not feel the least bit worthy of learning from you.”

“Nonsense,” he said, his tone now sharp. “You appreciated what you just heard, did you not? Not everyone would, as I know from experience.” His eyes met mine. “You understand, I think.”

I felt a strange and uncomfortable flush of heat at these words. “Yes,” I replied. “I think that I may. That I will.”

We held each other's gaze just an instant too long, then he looked away and nodded toward my borrowed violin. “Let us see if you can play that melody again, and keep your wrist straight this time,” he said. “Emotion may be the most critical aspect of music, but the trick is to be able to combine that with perfect technique.”

I picked up my violin. “Very well,” I said. “I will try again.”

*   *   *

Playing the violin again ignited a permanent glow that I carried inside me, which burned gently and steadily just beneath my breastbone. Before I left Maestro Vivaldi's house, we agreed I should return at noon in three days' time, but I knew my frequent comings and goings would not go unremarked upon for long. I was tempting
il destino,
but I couldn't stop. I thought of it constantly; no matter what else I was doing, in my head I was making music. Bursts of color were beginning to flower in the unending gray that had dominated my world for years.

Yet what haunted me most of all, in those few days following my first lesson, was the music Vivaldi had played. I heard it over and over again in my head, as though I could not forget it even if I had wanted to, and I began to feel that the music had changed something within me, though I did not know what.

 

3

APPASSIONATA

“Faster, Signorina Adriana! You must play it faster!” Vivaldi shouted for the second time, causing me to stop in the middle of the piece I was playing.

“I am still becoming familiar with the piece,” I protested. “This is only the third time I have gone through it, after all.”

Vivaldi was shaking his head before I had finished speaking. “You are thinking about it too much,” he told me. “You are perfectly capable of playing this without familiarizing yourself with it. Do not let your head get in the way of what your hands are doing; simply do it.” He motioned toward the bow dangling limply from my right hand. “Try it again.”

I lifted the bow to the strings, took a deep breath, and closed my eyes briefly.
Do not let your head get in the way of what your hands are doing.
I thought I knew what the maestro meant; but knowing and doing are very different things.

I opened my eyes and focused on the sheet of music in front of me, then began to play. I tried to take in the notes written on the page and send them directly on to the tips of my fingers, only letting them pass through my mind for an instant. Amazingly, it worked, somehow; and when I reached the point where Vivaldi had stopped me just moments before, where he had demanded that I play it faster, I heard the music spill from my violin at the perfect speed, fast enough yet not too fast. I broke into a smile as I glided through it. From there I played on to the end without pause, holding out the last note perhaps half a beat too long, savoring it. When I finally looked up, I saw that Maestro Vivaldi's eyes were bright with approval.

“You see?” he said. “I told you that you could do it. It is that simple.”

I smiled at his praise, and then, hesitating slightly, asked, “Did you write this?”

“I did.”

“It is wonderful,” I said, hoping that he could hear my sincerity.

“It is made even more so by your playing of it,” he said.

That same strange and welcome warmth as before flared within me, starting somewhere in my stomach and creeping up to my face. Knowing his eyes were upon me, I was forced to bow my head to collect myself.

When I looked up again, he had turned away and was shuffling through a stack of parchment.

“I have another for you to try,” he said, his back to me. He straightened up with another sheaf of papers in his hand and frowned. “Yet you are still not keeping your wrist precisely straight when you play,” he said, his voice a bit more stern now. “We have a little more time yet; let us see if we cannot correct that once and for all. It will make reaching each note much easier.”