Symphony of Seduction
Page 6
Berlioz felt an increasing lightness as each word landed on the paper, a dank fog being lifted with each stroke of the pen. The cellos and basses sang now through a hail of arpeggios falling from the rest of the orchestra, just like Berlioz had cried out in the preceding night’s storm, celebrating a return to life.
Clarity came to all his senses. He listened to a sea more at peace on this morning, and saw a cloudless spring sky. He smelled the boulangerie next door and realised he’d eaten nothing since a long-ago breakfast in Florence.
My God, he was hungry.
‘Where do you want to go, Frenchy-boy?’ the girl said, putting down her last drink and giving him a conspiratorial smile.
Berlioz hadn’t expected it to be this easy.
‘My place has a great view of the sea, but there’s the problem of the landlady,’ he said. ‘Why don’t we go down to the beach?’
He had explored this part of Nice’s coastline at length, stepping along pebbled beaches and taking refuge from the midday sun to steep himself in Shakespeare’s King Lear. He saw now how close he’d come to being like the poor madman on the stormy heath, fixated on those who had been cruel to him, yet it had taken only an instant for Berlioz’s world of thwarted love and all-encompassing hate to be dissipated by a shout from a cliff.
The letter from Rome contained good news. Years later he would remember these weeks in Nice as the happiest of his life.
How genuine had his love been, to vanish so quickly? How genuine his hate, for that matter? If they were monumental enough to have driven him to such extremes, why did their passage not last longer, feel more agonising? Was he guilty of the same fickleness as those whom he’d wanted to kill? Wasn’t he more sensitive than they?
These were daytime questions. Right now was not the time to dwell on sensitivities; Berlioz was combing the beach under the moon looking to have sex with someone he’d known for four hours. After six months of abstinence he needed some relief, and the local girl had suggested she was more than happy to assist.
They stopped at the mouth of a cave Berlioz remembered from earlier that day.
‘Let’s go in here,’ he called out over the wind and the crunch of the waves breaking on gravel.
‘Fuck off,’ grunted the couple inside.
There was nothing for it but to make a space on the beach itself. The night was warm, and the incoming tide would tickle at their legs.
Berlioz had never felt so alive. The cellos and basses he kept hearing were King Lear; now he had conceived Cordelia’s beautiful oboe theme and the orchestral response to Lear’s invitation ‘Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!’ – even the pizzicato snap when the king’s reason gives way.
Giggling, the girl exposed herself below the waist, scattering pebbles as she lifted her petticoats. Hector lowered his trousers and hoisted her bare right leg over his shoulder.
‘Brace yourself, chérie,’ he said. ‘I feel an overture coming on.’
POSTSCRIPT
Berlioz returned to the Villa Medici for another year, staying until late 1832. Much as he disliked his time there, the Italian experience inspired several of his later works, including the Harold in Italy and Romeo and Juliet symphonies, the opera Benvenuto Cellini (about the casting of the Perseus statue), and the Roman Carnival overture.
The overture King Lear was completed at speed during his Nice sojourn and first performed in Paris in 1833.
Camille Pleyel was divorced by her husband in 1835, amid allegations of her repeated adulteries. The Fantasia on Shakespeare’s Tempest, inspired by his idealisation of her as Ariel, eventually became the finale to his ‘lyric monodrama’ for narrator, soloists, chorus and orchestra called Lelio, or The Return to Life – the Fantastic Symphony’s official sequel.
DARK LOVE
Alessandro Stradella was brilliant, bad and dangerous to know during the Italian middle Baroque. Most fell under the spell of his music; women fell under the spell of the man. Hounded from a succession of cities by scandal, he made the mistake of coveting one particular woman and paid the price of stealing from a powerful man.
‘’Tis all too true that forever the stars rotate and with despotic tempers fling fierce disasters at me!’
Lucifer, in the Christmas Cantata by Alessandro Stradella (1639–1682)
VENICE, APRIL 1677
Stradella lifted the tip of his quill from the notes on his manuscript to admire his handiwork.
‘Looks good, Alessandro,’ he whispered to himself. ‘Sounds even better.’
It was an aria for the Virgin Mary, singing of her love for the Christ Child:
Sovrano mio bene, mia spene, mio cor
He knew he had captured the stillness and expectation of the holy night with those violin suspensions in the first few bars. The drone in the lower strings and organ echoed the sound of the pifferari from the Abruzzo who piped their way into Rome at Christmas time.
Great pastoral effect, he thought. Heaven knows what those shepherds played back in Jesus’ time, but it won’t have been as gorgeous as this.
The kicker was the endless phrase of long notes trailing away to the stars, when Mary describes her maternal love, pouring like soft rain at the Child’s feet:
L’interno suo amor con piogge serene riversa al tuo piè
… crowned by a stunning modulation that curled the whole thing away from the tonic.
Virgins always brought out the best in him.
‘Magic, old son,’ Stradella said again. ‘Shit, I’m good. This is going to be one hell of a Christmas cantata.’
He had thought as much about himself earlier that morning. Sloshing the warm water around his face after shaving, he stopped to appraise his chiselled features, full lips and caramel eyes, concluding that he wasn’t doing badly for a man in his thirty-eighth year. Women often gave him a second look as he passed them in the thoroughfare along the Grand Canal. All it took was a raised eyebrow and a slight tilt of his regal head, and the lady in question would check they were unobserved before following the straight, lean figure into an alley, away from the hubbub. The silent coupling took place beneath a canopy of hanging laundry, surrounded by dank smells and the mewing of cats.
It was all so easy in Venice, he mused. The sex felt so urgent. Maybe everyone thought they would sink into the lagoon if they wasted any time.
Stradella had only been in Venice for a couple of months, after fleeing from Rome when word got out about the money he and the castrato Vulpio had extorted from an old prostitute, the price for getting her hitched to Cardinal Cibo’s nephew. They’d spent a good part of the 10,000 scudi she’d forked out getting the silly bastard pissed enough to go through with it.
Christ, but she was ugly, he remembered with a smirk. Probably no surprise that the cardinal was splenetic with rage. A bad look for the family, he said. He was the Pope’s secretary of state, after all.
There’d been a knock on Stradella’s door late one night.
‘Signore!’ Guido had urged him awake. ‘There are men coming after you! They come from the cardinal!’
He knew precisely what was in store if he didn’t get moving there and then. It was an inelegant way to skip town – grabbing what he could, having Guido throw a hastily packed chest into a wagon, leaving some tasty commissions up in the air – but it would have been even more inelegant to be found dead in the morning.
‘Well, that was a fucking waste, Guido,’ he complained as they jostled out of the city in the back of the wagon, baggage strewn around them. ‘Ten years of my life in this town – all gone. Writing for the Queen of Sweden. Being made an honorary servant of the Pope. Working my arse off for rich people who never pay. Then, when I finally score a bit of cash from someone who won’t even notice it’s missing, the Church sets out to kill me. I ask you – where’s the charity?’
He thought of the boneheads ransacking his apartment even as he spoke, probably finding some letters from women that might give them a thrill – presuming they could read.
Stradella floated into town that February, the place misty and grey, the constant peals of church bells amplified by their reflections from the water. Stepping ashore onto what the Venetians considered dry land, he found himself inside a world of anonymity. The Carnival was in full swing, people wearing pale masks as they coursed around San Marco and the Rialto – priests, gamblers, the high-living sons and daughters of the aristocracy; everyone except the shopkeepers and those too poor to indulge in the licensed fun. Nine months from now, the front doors of the foundling homes would take delivery of a new generation of newborns, some of whose fathers would be in churches nearby, saying Mass and taking confessions.
Stradella imagined he too must be the father of a fair few bastards after some of his wild nights in Rome, and that he was probably going to have added to the tally of swollen bellies in La Serenissima once the mists rose and the masks came off. Polo Michiel was right: in Venice, they did love him. The end of Carnival saw no respite from pleasure either. Alessandro was even more attractive without a disguise.
He held out the letter to Polo Michiel.
‘His niece?’ he said. ‘I should be composing, not giving instructions to bored relatives.’
Stradella’s friend winked, noting the florid calligraphy, doubtless the work of a scribe, and the wax seal in place of a signature at the bottom of the document. The bearer of the ring that made that imprint was someone whose request could not be ignored.
‘It’s from the Doge, no mistake,’ Michiel said. ‘Alvise Contarini. We say “niece” to explain the fifty-year difference in their ages. She’s his mistress; at least, that’s his intention. When you’re approaching the end of your eighth decade, it must be a consolation to know that someone like her is waiting in your room.’
‘Why does he want her to learn music?’
‘Who knows? Perhaps he wants her to sing him to sleep.’ Michiel winked again. ‘Maybe she’s expressed her own interest in the subject. It’s more likely she fancies the new musician in town.’
‘How clever of her to arrange for her protector to pay for a younger man’s company – if she is indeed that strategic.’
‘You don’t become a doge’s mistress by just batting your eyes. Then again, this is Venice.’
‘Babysitting a rich man’s spoilt brat takes me away from more important work.’ Stradella sighed. ‘I suppose I have no choice. My hourly rate won’t be cheap, though.’
‘You could charge interest,’ said Michiel. ‘Not the sort of interest for which you’re famous, Alessandro. You don’t want to deal with a cuckolded doge.’
Three days later, a large gondola drew up outside Stradella’s apartment. A small figure draped in a veil was escorted to his door to be admitted by Guido.
‘Signore? Your guest has arrived.’
‘Show her in,’ said Stradella, uninterested. He was doodling with the vocal line in a solo motet. Putting down the quill, he turned to greet the visitor.
She entered, the line of her slim body delineated by a simple emerald green bodice. When she removed her veil, the hair clustered in loose curls around her ears was a rich auburn. It was the fashion for those who could afford it, but Stradella could see from the colour at the root and the paleness of the skin along the middle parting that Agnese Van Uffele presented just as Nature had made her.
If she was the sort of young woman to have contrived this situation, it wasn’t apparent in her face: a high smooth forehead, an expression completely devoid of insolence, and a mouth that already threatened to break into a smile, revealing unusually good teeth for someone in their early twenties. Her eyes were the hazel of her hair type, with flecks of green made more apparent by the colour of her dress.
Stradella decided that he would enjoy teaching music to his new pupil.
For her part, Agnese quickly understood why the rumours about his sudden arrival in Venice might be true. He was almost improbably handsome, with a body whose obvious strength and leanness was quite different to the sagging corpulence she saw around the court, or the limpness of her lover’s genitals she occasionally had to fondle, a spectacle made even more melancholy by flickering candlelight. She noticed Stradella’s violin on a side table, the hairs of its bow alongside stretched taut, ready to make music. Just like its owner, she presumed.
There was already some sort of tension in the room, even though Stradella himself seemed unaffected by it. Agnese sensed it coming from his eyes as they ranged up and down her body. There was nothing in her appearance that was indecorous on this morning – the Doge’s valet had made sure of it – yet she felt that even twice as many layers of clothing would feel just as transparent.
His gaze finally rested on hers. Eyebrows, she thought. Can a man’s eyebrows really be that intoxicating? And their tapered shape! She would love to stroke them, just once. What on earth am I doing here?
‘You are most welcome, signorina. I’m pleased to know the Doge will now have music to hand when needed.’ The voice was as dark as the thick hair only just streaked with grey, despite the financial worries of his Rome years.
‘It is an honour for me, Signor Stradella. The art of music has always brought me much pleasure. The Doge believes my receiving instruction from an esteemed musician of your experience may help me to extend that same pleasure to others, His Excellency in particular.’
Stradella crossed his arms, resting his right arm on his chest with fingers spread in such a way that she could easily guess at its contours. It would be a fine chest, she concluded.
‘You must tell the Doge for me that it is I who am honoured to be chosen as the one to increase his pleasure, although I can’t believe that having you in his company wouldn’t be pleasure enough for His Excellency.’
She blushed, and the colour made its way down her long neck. Stradella was no fool; he could guess at the nature of her relationship with Contarini. She realised that the blush was less from embarrassment and instead a reaction to the way his lips caressed the word ‘pleasure’.
Agnese knew she must decide quickly if the situation was already too dangerous. She could leave now, return to the Doge and tell him that Stradella had reluctantly concluded her talent was insufficient to the task of performing music at the level of His Excellency’s expectation. The Doge might even be relieved she wouldn’t be seeing the glamorous stranger.
She was jolted back to the moment by Stradella’s voice. He had approached her.
‘I take it you wish to read music, to sing?’
The situation was extremely dangerous. It’s very nice, this danger.
‘I’m told my voice is pleasant.’
‘May I?’ He reached for her face. She jerked back, a reflex.
‘This is important, madame,’ he said. ‘If we’re to make you a singer, I must have some idea of the quality of the instrument.’
Recomposing herself, she leaned forward to him, chin uplifted. He raised his hand again and touched her top lip with his middle finger, tracing its outline with a butterfly’s lightness. When he reached the corner of her mouth she parted her lips slightly. Stradella saw the moist tip of her tongue and savoured the sweetness of her breath, so different from that of the merchant’s wife he had screwed the day before.
His finger continued its journey along Agnese’s lower lip, and she closed her eyes to concentrate on the sensation. The light pressure continued south, sliding over her chin onto her neck, thumb and forefinger either side of her windpipe. Another sensation was making itself felt, a tingling between her legs.
She reared again, this time from a man’s voice outside hailing a friend across the narrow canal.
Her eyes opened. She and Stradella laughed. He withdrew his hand, brought the middle finger to his mouth, and very deliberately kissed the tip.
‘It is a delicate instrument, madame. A refined orifice. We should give it a try, I think. Twice a week, beginning as soon as possible?’
It’s now or never, Agnese. Say no. Take up embroidery.
JUNE
‘It’s called a concerto grosso,’ Stradella said, attempting to unroll the manuscript pages along Agnese’s naked back. ‘A big concerto. We have so much opera in Venice, so much opera everywhere. I want to create something exclusively for instruments that has the same theatricality, a dialogue between ensembles of different sizes. Why should singers have all the fun?’
‘That’s a rather strange question to ask at this point in our studies,’ said Agnese, reaching over to caress his arm. ‘You’ve spent six weeks teaching me a lot about fun, and not very much about singing.’
‘It came as some surprise to me to see that you knew so little about either. What on earth do you do in the Palazzo Ducale with that doge of yours?’
‘Less than you think. The Doge is still vigorous in mind, but the rest of him is not really up for fun, and I mean that in every sense. You’re the first man I’ve ever seen in such a – state. This state, I mean,’ she said, running her hand along the topic of conversation.
‘How does a beautiful local virgin end up as a decoration in a doge’s palace? Or is that a silly question?’
‘Not at all. It isn’t the usual destination for local virgins, even though it’s quite common for doges.’ She frowned. ‘My father is what you’d call a failed nobleman who poured what little remained of the family fortunes onto the gaming tables along the Grand Canal. When the cards took it all, he played his last hand by presenting me at court. He let it be known to the Doge’s attendants that anything might be possible in exchange for the settlement of his debts.’
Stradella clasped her neck with concern. ‘He sold you?’
‘Loaned me, perhaps. Given the Doge’s frailty, my father felt the essential part of the transaction – my virginity – wasn’t likely to be violated. The contract would be terminated by the Doge’s death sooner rather than later.’