The Mandolin Lesson
Page 19
An old lady walks past with a basket of green leaves spilling over the edges. Two teenage boys wearing the school uniform of jeans and trainers and carrying rucksacks on their backs walk to school. A man cycles past and greets a lady across the street. I notice a small dog running at the side and see that he is attached by a lead to the cyclist’s hand. I enjoy this leisurely walk to work. There is so much to take in and I am grateful that I am within walking distance of my destination. It makes a welcome change to have short journeys.
Walking down the Via Battaglie, I remember the last mandolin course and my curiosity about the people who live in the apartments high up and hidden away within the buildings on either side of the road. I am taken back even further to my first visit to Brescia. On the Sunday, I spent the day being a tourist. I visited the Duomo Vecchio, the Roman ruins, and the art collection at the Pinoteca. It was a difficult day. I didn’t realise everything would shut down so completely for lunch. I had managed to get a sandwich and a coffee just before the bar closed, but then I found myself in the courtyard outside the Pinoteca waiting for an hour and a half for it to open for the afternoon session. I sat on a bench in the shade, listening to the echoing voices of a family emanating from an open window high up. I could hear the clutter of cutlery on the table, the chatter and the laughter, and I so longed to be up there with them, to experience their life, to see the rooms they lived in, to taste their food, to talk with them. It seems so strange that now this is exactly what I am doing. I am living with my friend in rooms high up above the ancient streets of Brescia. I am living only a few streets away from that family I overheard all those summers ago.
Another experience clouds my memory, dark and humiliating, a secret I have only shared with Giovanna. I remember waiting later that same day to be collected by Dorina with whom I was staying. As I waited for her car, a stranger stopped his car and after some confusing conversation, I sent him on his way. I realised with burning cheeks that he mistook me for a prostitute. I felt so ashamed. In time, I came to understand that it was because I was wearing a long flowing floral dress of the kind that was so fashionable in England during the eighties. I just had no idea that to classically-minded Italians, my dress would seem bizarre, even outrageous, and might give the wrong impression. Now, I look at other women in the street, the jackets, the trousers, the designer sunglasses, and they reflect back the image I now have. I move about unseen and untroubled, and I am content.
*
The mandolin course is dedicated almost exclusively to the music of Giacomo Sartori. I am not acquainted with Sartori. I know nothing about him or his work, but this is about to change.
“Ciao,” Deborah cries out from across the room, “come stai?” How are you?
She comes to me smiling, gives me a big hug and kisses me on both cheeks.
“Bene,” I reply, “sto molto bene, grazie.” I am very well, thank you.
We are the only females at present and we sit tribally together, tuning our instruments carefully. The Maestro places a piece of music on the stand in front of us. ‘Pianto di bimba’. ‘Tears of a small female child or baby’. The letter ‘a’ at the end of the word ‘bimba’ denotes the gender of the tiny child or baby. It is an intimate title.
We begin to play. It is an old-fashioned waltz, just like the tunes my father used to play on the piano. The window near us is ajar and a warm breeze comes through the iron railings – the security grate that protects the window. We stop. The Maestro talks. He has a great deal to say about the music and its interpretation. He always has a lot of opinions and I enjoy listening to the sound of the discourse as much as its contents. The rhythms of speech and the rise and fall in pitch of the words are as interesting as the ideas conveyed. The Maestro makes music even as he speaks. Young children’s voices from the nearby school float in with the breeze. They punctuate, comment, blend and disappear.
We play the piece again, better this time.
Giacomo Sartori was born during the latter half of the nineteenth century, in 1860, at a small town called Ala in the Trento region, not far from the Austrian border. His family ran a perfume and barber’s shop, in which he was required to help. However, Giacomo was more enamoured with music than with cutting hair and he devoted himself to musical study, beginning with the violin. Later, he taught himself mandolin and guitar and he also developed keyboard skills; a harmonium was kept in the back of the shop. But his greatest love, and what he considered his real work, was composition. He composed prolifically for the mandolin and guitar, turning out at one stage in his life compositions every fortnight, which were published in the Turin magazine Il Mandolino.
I love the fact that, like me, Sartori began his studying with the violin before graduating to the mandolin. I also learn that he taught violin privately and was interested and active in the education of young children; further connections between our lives. I am beginning to build a picture of his character.
We go onto other pieces. ‘Non ti vedrò più’: ‘I will not see you any more’, an elegy dedicated to his mother. ‘Sorrisi’: ‘Smiles’, a small ‘serenata’, a serenade, with the dedication ‘Ai miei nipotini’, which could refer to nephews and nieces but probably means grandchildren. ‘Ai Bagni’, another waltz with a title that translates as ‘at the baths’, presumably of the spa variety so popular in Italy, and is written for his three children. There are many personal dedications and the titles frequently record moments and people in the life of the composer. It is as if we are looking at Sartori’s personal photograph album and experiencing the images as sound.
Sartori’s music reflects the lyricism of Italian bel canto, combined with the dance music of Viennese tea-rooms. Sometimes I find it a little too syrupy and at other times I relax and enjoy its old-fashioned charm. The notes are all comfortably under the fingers and it is good fun to play.
I have a wonderful surprise when the Maestro presents me unexpectedly with a book, Il Periodo d’Oro del Mandolino: The Golden Age of the Mandolin. The book is a collection of nineteenth century Italian writings about the mandolin that are brought together and republished as one work under the editorship of my teacher, Ugo Orlandi. Sometime in the last two years, I’ve forgotten exactly when, the Maestro consulted me about the English translation of various excerpts. Now the book is published and there is a printed mention of my name, thanking me for my ‘precious contribution’. The Maestro has also signed my book with his name and the date and a personal ‘Grazie, per tutto!’: ‘Thank you, for everything!’ It is a small token of appreciation, which I value enormously. It is both strange and fantastic to be acknowledged in an Italian book.
*
Deborah and I climb the steep stairs onto the luxury coach. We are accompanying the Brescian Mandolin and Guitar orchestra on a concert trip to Ala. Being from Piedmont, Deborah is not familiar with the members of the orchestra, but I have met them many times before, so I find myself introducing her to various people and telling her who is who. It is really lovely to be greeted by Talia, Anna, Fiorella, Lorella, and others with such genuine warmth. They always make me feel part of the crowd.
We leave the urban environment of Brescia by joining the autostrada that runs across the top of Italy, connecting Turin with Venice. We head towards Venice, sweeping through the open countryside of Lombardy and skirting the lower side of Lake Garda. Just before Verona, we change onto another motorway, heading north to Rovereto and Trento. It takes us parallel along the east side of Lake Garda and also follows the course of the River Adige. We pass signs for famous wine-growing regions; Bardolino, one of my favourite red wines, on the left and Valpolicella on the right. As we reach our destination, I am aware that we are making a considerable ascent. To the left is Mount Baldo and to the right are the Lessini Mountains.
We alight from the coach at Ala, a short walk from the historic centre. I breathe the thin sharp air. It is very cool and heavily scented with wood smoke. When we reach the narrow street at the side of the theatre, I can’t help think
ing that the character of the town is just like other mountain resorts I have been to. This isn’t a ski resort, but I can imagine a sprinkling of snow and people milling around in their padded ski suits, woollen hats and snow boots. I am really excited by the transition from being in a city to, within a couple of hours, being in a mountain town on the way to the Austrian border. It is a completely different landscape and unforeseen treat. One of the things I love about my mandolin lessons is that I constantly get to see new locations that I would never have dreamt of visiting as a tourist.
Inside the Teatro Giacomo Sartori, preparations are in progress for the concert. It is being recorded for television and there are technicians with wires and cables. The concert doesn’t start until a quarter to nine and there has been no opportunity to eat so far. Feeling hungry, I ascertain that we have time to pop out for a snack. Deborah and I, and Deborah’s mum, who is also with us, decide to take a walk to see what we can find. Our investigation culminates in the only open bar. There are no sandwiches left, so Deborah and I stave off hunger with cappuccinos and chocolate-covered biscuits.
The Maestro has rehearsed a Sartori work with the two of us called ‘Maliziosette’. I am not sure if I like the title of the ‘mischievous seven’. It can also mean ‘malicious’, but I feel certain that the composer didn’t have that interpretation of the word in mind. It is dedicated to the female mandolinists of Ala. The Maestro has the idea that we should join the ladies of the orchestra for this unscheduled item that will be announced. We don’t know when it will be announced, but I imagine it will be an encore item. However, the idea gets abandoned because the television cables make it impossible to add further chairs to the stage and I am relieved because I feel that I am not wearing the correct clothes. I didn’t bring my concert dress to Italy. When the idea was sprung upon me, I didn’t worry because I thought it was a relaxed concert, but I don’t want to appear, even fleetingly, on television wearing clothes that don’t blend.
The concert is a wonderful celebration, not only of Sartori’s music – it is the fiftieth anniversary of his death – but also of other composers from his era such as Raffaele Calace and Hermann Ambrosius. Afterwards, we are invited to an adjoining room where an excellent supper is laid out for the orchestra and hangers-on like me. There is all manner of finger food. I feast on wedges of cold pizza, topped with olives, anchovies, capers and mushrooms. Feeling restored by the food, I chat with my friends from the orchestra and we drink freshly made espresso. There is a marvellous feeling of euphoria after the concert and I am caught up in it. I feel energised, animated and happy, just as if I had been playing with them.
iii
Backwards and forwards, I slip effortlessly between my Italian life and my English life.
In the beginning, I had wanted to play the mandolin more beautifully. This entailed studying the mandolin in its native country and required me to travel there to learn new skills, a different technique, in order to be able to play more beautifully. Then, after technique, there was the question of aesthetics: what is and what is not beautiful? This is a fundamental aspect of, and intrinsic to, Italian culture. I found myself not just making physical journeys to and around Italy, but also learning about and assimilating the culture. I thought I had gone to learn to play my instrument better and I ended up being changed profoundly.
I have refined further my already well-developed ideas about food, I have changed the way I dress to a more classical European style and I have made adjustments to harmonise the interior of my home. I move between the two languages, talking, reading, thinking, and even dreaming in a mixture of Italian and English. My garden has acquired pots of pelargoniums, herbs such as rosemary and even a fig tree. Everything about my existence is touched by Italy.
So absorbed am I in all things Italian that some friends quite genuinely think I will move to Italy permanently. Some joke that I have a secret Italian lover. They are mistaken. Others still think, quite wrongly, that I must be making a fortune, simply because of an assumption that frequent trips abroad equates with business and making money. I must be giving concerts and earning huge sums of money. But it is quite the reverse. I am making a great sacrifice in terms of money, energy and time, not to mention taking a risk by taking time out of my career in England and all this in order to achieve my objective of playing more beautifully.
There are a number of things troubling me, and in my third year of study, I realise that my journey is not just about music. Neither is it solely about the huge impact a different culture has had on both my music and my life. The journey is no longer a physical journey at all. Instead, it has become another journey, one in which I travel deep within. It is an interior journey, a private and intimate exploration.
Sometimes, people cannot understand what it is I am doing in Italy. I often find it best to say that I am doing research, which in a way is true but is also a bit misleading. By saying that I am researching, and I am finding out about the Italian method of playing and new repertoire, I give people something they can relate to. It is consistent with the status of a professional musician who has a Master’s degree. However, to say I am starting all over again and relearning something in a different way seems incomprehensible in our materialistic society. People say, “but what are you are getting out of it?” I often hear myself saying that I will obtain a diploma, a certificate, or a piece of paper at the end to prove my proficiency as a mandolinist. This is easier, because people understand that I will get something. Some people think I am already proficient and don’t understand the point of learning a foreign way of doing something. Many people miss the point altogether. I just have to do whatever is necessary to play more beautifully. Through music, by playing expressively and by teaching effectively, I touch the lives of other people. I have to do the best I can and I have to follow this path. I have to do this to be true to myself and to honour my spirit.
*
I am walking along the Via del Santo. At the end of my lesson, I told the Maestro that I had an important errand to run. He probably thinks I am shopping, but I am returning to the tomb of St Anthony. I have not seen it since my first visit to Padua many years ago. We were staying as a family in Venice and my son was very small, still being pushed in the buggy. Recently, I saw a documentary at home on television that highlighted the tomb of St Anthony as an important place of pilgrimage and the site of many healing miracles.
The shops of this street are filled with religious paraphernalia. There are all manner of statues, mostly of St Anthony, appropriately, and the Virgin Mary, as well as crucifixes, rosaries and icons. There is something for every purse and every taste. I notice a restaurant where we once had dinner. It doesn’t seem to have changed much. In the piazza in front of the Basilica di Sant’Antonio, there are a number of souvenir stalls selling garish plastic statues of the Madonna and rosaries, as well as postcards and miniature wooden models of Pinocchio.
At the site of the tomb, I stand in the line of pilgrims waiting to pass and to touch the sarcophagus of St Anthony whilst saying a prayer. As we file slowly round, passing through the sumptuous chapel, I find myself touching the cold marble of the tomb with my fingers. Previously, I had been preoccupied with my thoughts, desires and prayers. Suddenly, my mind is completely blank. I cannot utter the words I want to. I cannot even form the words in my mind. My fingers slide over the silky stone. All I am aware of is being enveloped by a feeling of great peace and stillness. It is as if everything stops for a few seconds.
I place some paper money in a box and I choose a large candle, which I place on a pile to be lit at a future Mass in the Basilica. I hear the chanting of a priest celebrating a Mass in progress. The sung liturgy is evocative and timeless. I wish I could join them, but I have to return to the station to catch the train back to Bologna. The chanting haunts me all the way back to the station. I can still feel the moment at the tomb when I had the sense of momentarily connecting with eternity. I was not in the past and I was not in the future. I was in the
moment and conscious of an overwhelming presence, a feeling of acceptance, of contentment.
iv
Just before Christmas, I find myself in Brescia whilst my son is far around the other side of the world in Brazil on a concert tour with his choir.
We have only just become used to the idea of my spending time in Italy whilst he is still at school in England. Now I am still in Europe, but he is in South America. Despite the thorough preparations and the elaborate security procedures in place, Brazil suffers from the tensions of great poverty and great wealth co-existing. I am worried. It is the nature of mothers to worry about their offspring. I try to focus on the wonderful opportunity he has, possibly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, to see a new and exotic country.
This month, I make a new friend from another faraway place. She is called Miki and she has come from Japan to live in Italy, whilst studying the mandolin at Padua.
On Saturday, I attend another Sartori concert given again by the Mandolin and Guitar Orchestra ‘Città di Brescia’ – this time at the Teatro Colonna in Brescia. Afterwards, Talia, Giovanna, another non-musician friend of Giovanna’s and I all go for a pizza.
Talia works in the family-run music shop in Brescia. She is wonderful at keeping an extensive stock of mandolin music. I am always popping in to look through to see if there is anything I haven’t got and she always has time for a chat.