The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi's Venice

by Laurel Corona

  “Here I am,” she whispered from the balcony as Vivaldi conversed with the king. “Look up.”

  Vivaldi turned his body, gesturing in the direction of the balcony. He was pointing to various places, as if describing to the king the arrangement of the coro, and Maddalena thought, although she could not be sure, that his finger had rested, if only for a fleeting moment, directly on her.

  Did I make him do that? Vivaldi was still talking to the king, but he turned away from the balcony and she could no longer see his face.

  The coro had by now come out, and Maddalena moved away from the railing to take her place. She tried to lose herself in the music, but her upcoming solo loomed before her, making her enter so early on a few bars that Pellegrina scowled at her and stuck out her tongue when the violins rested.

  And then the moment arrived. She needn’t have feared. As if hypnotized, her hand caressed the bow and stroked the strings, and though a third violinist probably went unnoticed by the audience, she played the adagio Vivaldi had written for her as if all the heartaches in human history were contained in it. Then she and the others broke into the final bright movement, as if grief could be shrugged off because life, in the end, is so good.

  And it was. She grabbed Chiaretta’s hand and squeezed it as they left the balcony.

  The figlie buzzed with excitement as the priora waved them down a narrow hallway and through an open door connecting the parlatorio and the cloister. “I’m going to meet a king!” Chiaretta whispered to herself in disbelief.

  On the figlie’s side of the grille dividing the room was a row of benches, while on the other side, the king and his retinue were seated in chairs near the fire. The coro hung back, watching the king get up to greet the priora at the grille.

  “Such a curious custom,” he said, gesturing to the wrought-iron barrier. “We can see them, but we cannot move among them?”

  “No, Your Majesty,” she said. “Not at the moment. It is our way. But if you would like something more intimate, we have a small sala for private concerts, and I’m sure one could be arranged.”

  Vivaldi entered the parlatorio on the public side, and the king turned to him and applauded. “Bravo! The reputation of the Pietà is most decidedly deserved. A feast for the ears and the eyes,” he said, looking back again at the figlie.

  The king’s tone was stiff, and whether he truly appreciated the music was impossible to tell, but it didn’t matter. He was still a king, standing almost close enough to touch. Vivaldi asked first the singers and then the orchestra to come to the grille. The king stretched out his hand and swept it in a long wave in front of him as his eyes passed over each one of them in turn. “Bravissime,” he said. “I think that is your word?”

  Vivaldi nodded and looked over at the performers. His glance rested for a moment on Maddalena, and he gave her an almost imperceptible nod before looking back at the king. She looked away, but Chiaretta touched Maddalena’s shoulder from behind, to let her know that she too had noticed.

  The priora’s quick assurance that the king could have a private concert proved to be a dilemma for the Nobili Uomini Deputati, who had arranged for a potential new donor to have the figlie perform at a party at his home on the sole night the king was available. Denmark was far away and the king had made no mention of payment, so the Congregazione had agreed that changing the plan was imprudent.

  To put the most expedient face on the situation, the Nobili Uomini Deputati informed the king that he would have the pleasure of hearing a special performance by the Pietà’s great prodigy Anna Maria, along with the noted sisters Maddalena and Chiaretta, who at sixteen and thirteen were upcoming stars. One of the greatest musicians of her time, Maestra Luciana, would also come out of retirement for the concert in his honor. Chiaretta would perform all the vocals, Maddalena would play the violin, and Anna Maria would play whatever else was needed. They had three days to prepare.

  A list was drawn up of Gasparini’s works that were familiar enough to Luciana to require no more than a quick review in her chambers. Maddalena, Chiaretta, and Anna Maria were excused from other work, and even from chapel prayers, to practice.

  Vivaldi was beside himself when he saw the program. “What good does it do me if the king hears Gasparini’s music?”

  “The music is nice, even if it’s not yours,” Maddalena offered, “and on such short notice it’s understandable.”

  “Understandable?” Vivaldi snorted. “That’s not the point.

  A nice concert doesn’t pay the rent.” He threw some sheet music toward the credenza in the practice room. Most of it spilled onto the floor, and Vivaldi grabbed his hair in his hands. “Aahh! In te, Domine, speravi, non confundar in aeternum, ” he said under his breath as he bent over, still praying, and gathered the strewn papers.

  Ignoring him, Maddalena put in order the pages of what she saw was a Nisi Dominus for contralto and orchestra. She began to hum the opening bars, and within seconds he was standing next to her, grabbing the music.

  “Do you think you could do this if I rewrote it for you? One violin instead of an orchestra, a soprano not a contralto, and Anna Maria on continuo? The cello—yes, that’s good, that’s good,” he said, without waiting for her response.

  By the next morning he had rewritten the whole motet and came to the room where the three girls were rehearsing, spending only a few minutes with them before rushing out again. “I have to go home and start writing,” he said. “If I get a commission, I must be ready. I’ve heard the king is not staying long.”

  Skepticism had been written on Maddalena’s pale face before Vivaldi arrived and remained after he left.

  “It’s for a king!” Chiaretta crowed. “Why aren’t you more excited?”

  The king was not the one on Maddalena’s mind. Luciana, with whom she would be playing one of Gasparini’s duets, still had the ability to scramble Maddalena’s nerves.

  “You can show her how good you are now,” Chiaretta said.

  “She’s just a devil from hell. Remember?”

  Anna Maria was not in on the joke but chimed in. “She’s an ugly old witch, and you can play as well as she can now,” she said, looking at them with her serious, stark eyes.

  Maddalena picked up her violin. “I guess we’ll see.” Chiaretta and Anna Maria applauded.

  The three of them had little time to rehearse Vivaldi’s pieces because they had been so intent on preparing Maddalena for her performance with Luciana. Maddalena worried privately about not being ready but said nothing. In the last year or so, Chiaretta had developed a way of looking aside, or even just shifting her weight, and Maddalena would know something was bothering her. She could say “Hmm,” in a particular tone, and Maddalena would feel her distaste, especially when they talked about Vivaldi. Though her relationship with her sister was still close and fiercely loyal, it had suffered a little since the day in the sala dal violino, when Chiaretta had sensed that Maddalena was not telling her everything about whether Vivaldi had kissed her.

  As a result, any mention of the maestro elicited Chiaretta’s full range of disapproving responses. Chiaretta would never believe Maddalena was concerned about rehearsing Vivaldi’s pieces only because she wanted to play them well. She believed her sister was fretting about a man—and worse, a man she could never have. It was best, Maddalena decided, not even to mention his name.

  On the day of the performance, Luciana heaved her body up the stairs a few steps behind Maddalena, filling the stairwell with the sound of her labored breathing. When they reached the top of the stairs, they found themselves in a space scarcely wider than a window ledge, one that could accommodate a handful of musicians only if they remained standing throughout the performance. Luciana grunted and fell into the chair that had been provided for her despite the cramped quarters, while the two sisters and Anna Maria peered through the gauze down into the sala.

  Gilded cherubs with mischievous grins on their faces held aside the thick brocade curtains of the room below. Sc
attered on a floor of polished stone were armchairs with soft velvet seats that looked so comfortable Maddalena was not surprised the king had already begun to slouch in one of them. Vivaldi and a member of the king’s retinue spoke in a corner. More stucco cherubs played musical instruments as they looked down on the guests from the four corners of the ceiling.

  Maddalena felt her heart skip when she saw Vivaldi, out of sudden fear her playing would let him down. Nothing remained, however, but to push on and hope for the best. When the five of them were settled, she lifted her violin and led into Chiaretta’s first solo with a three-note gallop, answered by Anna Maria’s insistent twonote ostinato on the cello.

  “Nisi, nisi Dominus,” Chiaretta began, and the music flowed. As Chiaretta moved into the next section, the three girls exchanged grins about the words she was singing. It was futile to get up before daybreak, the psalmist had said, a sentiment that had broken them up with laughter in rehearsal, since they had been getting up before dawn every day of their lives. “Surgite, surgite.” Chiaretta’s voice jumped with excitement, calling on the world to get up, with the urgency of someone who has gotten out of bed to find the house on fire.

  Maddalena and Anna Maria’s accompaniment was so tight and smooth that it did not occur to Chiaretta to do anything but try to fill the sala with her voice. The small size of the room amplified the music, and she was lost in what felt like an envelope of sound. Near the end of the motet, she cast a glance over to her sister and saw something so unexpected she gasped and had to improvise a few notes to get back in control of the music.

  Luciana was hovering over Maddalena, turning the pages of her music. She had seen her struggling and, without a word, had pulled herself to her feet to help her. Chiaretta looked over at Anna Maria, who let her jaw go slack to signal her astonishment.

  Luciana sat back down for the rest of the concert, and the violins and cello played one of Gasparini’s compositions. Maddalena kept her eyes averted during the first movement, but in the most difficult section, she looked up to work with her partner, just as Vivaldi had taught her, and saw Luciana already watching her. Later, when she looked again, Luciana had shut her eyes, and her face had softened in a way Maddalena had never seen. This must be what she was like when she was young, Maddalena thought. She had a heart then too.

  As applause rang out from below, Maddalena felt suddenly shy, breaking the silence between them with the only words she could think of. “Thank you.”

  “No. Thank you,” Luciana said, but in the dim light Maddalena could not read her expression. The old maestra turned to ask Anna Maria to help her to her room, and without another word, she was gone.

  * * *

  Maddalena hummed as she and her sister put on their shoes to go down to the rehearsal room after the midday rest. Chiaretta felt some of the same contentment seep into her, as if she could curl back up in bed and start purring like the stray cats that found their way into the courtyards of the Pietà and rubbed up against the leg of one figlia after another.

  Maddalena’s high spirits had not diminished in the two gloomy months since the king’s visit. She and Chiaretta had several performances a week during the Carnevale season, many of them at lavish parties away from the Pietà. Vivaldi had gotten his commission from the king. His operas were profitable, and the only problem was that they were keeping him so busy he often had to cancel her lessons. Nevertheless, she felt closer than ever to him after the success of the king’s special concert, a victory he had told her she was in large part responsible for. So close, she sensed him standing behind her chair every time she performed.

  Maddalena and Chiaretta got to the practice room early enough to look out onto the Riva degli Schiavoni and watch the passing spectacle of Carnevale. Below them, mummers and acrobatic clowns ingratiated themselves to masked men in black cloaks. Ladies, disguised under glittering masks with the faces of cats or birds or mythical creatures, paraded in feathers and jewels. Hawkers sold cakes, lemons, toys, flowers, and elixirs for every ailment.

  Beyond the din of their voices, the sound of bagpipes and drums mingled with the calls of the merchants in their stalls spilling off the Broglio and down the Riva toward the Pietà. Back and forth on the Grand Canal a steady procession of gondolas took one boatload of revelers to the docks of San Marco and came back with another. Men lay with their legs sprawled over women in the bottoms of gondolas. Others stood urinating in great dramatic arcs into the lagoon, held by their knees to keep them from toppling into the water. Women threw confetti and flowers, while men on unsteady legs launched empty flasks of wine into the canal. Flatbottomed boats filled with musicians traveled up and down, their music floating up to the windows along the waterways.

  For the residents of the Pietà, there would be no venturing onto the streets except under close guard to and from special appearances, such as a magnificent annual concert that would take place in the doge’s chambers in a few days’ time. Maddalena and Chiaretta went to take their places with the other members of the coro awaiting the beginning of the final rehearsal. The windows were closed against the cold, but the pop of fireworks and the loud voices of people on the street could still be heard.

  Maestro Vivaldi had not arrived. After twenty minutes of waiting, the figlie drifted away to look out the window or began playing their own parts in their seats. Then the door opened, and Prudenzia, the new maestra dal violino, came in holding a piece of paper, which she put down on the music stand.

  “Girls,” she said. “Let’s begin. I will lead you today.”

  For the next two hours, Maddalena watched the door, but Vivaldi did not come. Finally, Prudenzia dismissed them. She collected the music on her stand and placed it in a cabinet. “Make your devotion tomorrow morning and get dressed. We perform for the doge at midday.” Her voice was clipped, and she left without saying anything else.

  Maddalena sat back down, pretending to practice a difficult section while she waited for the others to leave. When she was alone, she went over to the cabinet and began leafing through the music to see if Prudenzia had left the paper behind.

  She found it near the bottom of the pile, a small piece of folded paper signed by Bernardo Morosini, Antonia’s father. “This is to notify you that Don Antonio Vivaldi has been relieved of his duties at the Pietà. Please prepare the girls for the doge’s concert, as it will go on as scheduled.”

  Maddalena read the words again and again before sliding the note back in among the sheets of music. He’s gone. Just like that. She put her hands over her face, squeezing her eyes shut until they hurt.

  She moaned inadvertently. It echoed through the empty room, mingling with a woman’s shrill laughter wafting up from the street. It sounded like two violins played with rough twigs instead of bows, the shrieks of the woman in the street and the screams inside her skull.

  NINE

  Maddalena got through the doge’s concert by closing her eyes so she would not notice Vivaldi’s absence. Chiaretta was charming enough for both of them as they were introduced to Alvise Mocenigo, the Doge of Venice, after which, begging a headache, Maddalena was able to escape back to the Pietà before being stuck at a banquet table for hours.

  Chiaretta sat down on the bed beside her sister when she returned, hoping the movement might rouse her. When Maddalena did not budge, Chiaretta stood up with a sigh and went to find someone else to help her take off her dress. Maddalena opened her eyes to see if her sister was gone. For the first time since they had come to the Pietà, she wanted her sister to go away, wanted everything to go away, wanted more than anything not to have to face the world.

  Chiaretta slipped back and lay down on her bed. Maddalena heard her burrowing into her pillow, rotating her shoulders and hips as her breathing turned heavy with sleep. Now almost fourteen, Chiaretta seemed to float from performance to performance with as little effort as it took for confetti to flutter through the air, but at that moment the heaviness over Maddalena was so profound she wondered how she would even be a
ble to lift her bow at her next practice. Just a note from Vivaldi—even a few scribbled words—would have been enough. In her imagination she opened a letter with her name written in beautiful, large letters at the top. He would start by telling her of the sadness in his heart, then go on to say how vigorously he had fought to stay. He would close by telling her he would return, if for no other reason than that he was not complete unless he was playing music with her. For a moment Maddalena wasn’t sure how he would sign it. “Your friend Vivaldi” was a possibility, or maybe just his initials.

  No, she decided. He would sign it “Antonio.”

  Only two days had passed since she had read Prudenzia’s note. Perhaps he was still in Venice and hadn’t yet had time to write. That thought was enough to relax her muscles and quiet her mind. Pulling her blanket up and tucking it in around her neck to keep out the chill, she shut her eyes and fell asleep.

  When no letter arrived, Maddalena resigned herself to the conclusion that Vivaldi had more important things to think about than her. He seemed not just to have been fired from the Pietà but to have vanished from Venice altogether. One day, when she overheard the maestre gossiping, she was sure she heard his name and thought they were casting their eyes over at her.

  What were they whispering? Were they blaming her for his dismissal? Maybe they were discussing the violin bow, the dancing, the third violin solo, the special lessons—it could be so many things. Chiaretta had been right to frown when she talked about him. It did look improper. He was a priest, after all, and she was a young woman nearing seventeen.