Historical novels have long taken characters from real life as their inspiration, whether it be for an imagined narrative or a retelling of a life, which can be well-known, or little-known. The Instrumentalist does the latter.
Anna Maria della Pietà was abandoned as a baby and grew up in the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice in the late 1690s. This orphanage for girls, linked to a convent, was famed for its orchestra, the figlie di coro, the girls left there being taught music, and the best auditioning for the orchestra. Anna Maria learned many instruments, but was a star on the violin – and during her time there, her main tutor and later Master of Music at the Ospedale was one Antonio Vivaldi, who wrote much of the orchestra’s music while there. Little is known of Anna Maria’s life, but she led and composed for the orchestra and was proclaimed ‘maestra‘ at only twenty-four; sadly her own compositions have not survived. She never left the Ospedale, teaching and composing for the girls in her turn and living to a ripe old age into her eighties.
Constable takes these bare bones and constructs a possible life story around them for Anna Maria. We begin with a scene imagining Anna Maria’s arrival at the Ospedale. The young mother worked in a brothel and there was way she could keep the baby. The Ospedale has a hole in the wall which will only fit the youngest of babies, which were taken in and looked after: outside, her mother stumbles over the blue body of a baby grown too big to fit in the hole!
At eight, Anna Maria is a spirited child, having two close friends in Agata and Paulina. The girls do chores in the mornings and have music lessons with Signore Conti in the afternoons, Paulina taking up the oboe, Anna Maria initially the harpsichord as main instruments. Then, one day she spies a different man playing the violin in a side room and has an epiphany, hearing his playing in full colour, for she has synaesthesia. She must play the violin. She gets her chance, when they all have a go for Signore Vivaldi. Anna Maria, is bursting to take her turn and when she gets it, the colours erupt from her playing. Signore Vivaldi dismisses them except for Anna Maria who will get individual lessons.
Now, I am a (lapsed) violinist. I too began lessons at the age of eight, with a stern German violin teacher who made me cry at first, but whom I grew to love, reaching Grade VIII in the sixth form. I can still remember those first lessons on a cheap three-quarter sized violin and they were painful – for fingers, arms and most importantly ears! I defy any eight-year old to pick up a small fiddle and get a good sound out of it on a first go. But something took and I was able to persevere and then enjoy it. Anna Maria’s natural brilliance felt rather unnatural to me, even though Constable makes it clear she has not played before by telling us about the strains and pains she feels in her body. But a good teacher will very soon recognise a potential virtuoso, so I will give her the benefit of the doubt. In her first private lesson, she has a conversation with her tutor who nicknames her ‘Eight’ for her age, which will cement her ambitions…
He looks up at her suddenly. ‘Tell me, do girls have ambitions at this place?’
‘Yes,’ she says taken aback. ‘I want to be a violin player like you.’
She almost adds she wants to be the greatest violin player in the the world, but something makes her think better of it. The other girls laugh at her for saying things like this.
He lets out a short laugh. ‘I am not merely a violinist, Eight, I am a composer. Instrumentalists are forgotten.’
Her cheeks burn. ‘Players are remembered too,’ she says.
‘For a number of years, perhaps. But it is not the same. Composers are remembered forever.’
The narrative continues, and Anna Maria is totally consumed by her ambition, alienating her friends in the process, getting into trouble for taking some of her tutor’s manuscript paper to compose on, and making a rival of the slightly older Chiara, another talented violinist. But at only fourteen now, Anna Maria is officially still too young to join the figlie di coro. Vivaldi bends the rules for her, inviting her to audition, and much to some of the members’ incredulity, she is accepted. Now she begins to experience a different life, the figlie girls have their own rooms, uniforms, and get to go outside the Ospedale to play concerts, often for wealthy benefactors such as Elisabetta Marcini, and the top players get showered with gifts. Being in the orchestra also avoids one being married off young as the other orphans will be – such is Agata’s fate. Now, her next task is how to wangle the coveted orchestra leader position from Chiara. Anna Maria and Vivaldi increasingly compose together, and she is perplexed but accepting at first when they play a joint piece at a concert and Vivaldi takes all the plaudits for it. Things will come to a head when they play one of her compositions… and rivalries and her sheer ambition will shape what happens next.
I can accept that Vivaldi had his favourites and was a hard and ruthless taskmaster. Woe betide a girl who’s playing wasn’t up to scratch, they would be dropped from the figlie pronto. However, I wasn’t sure about Constable’s insinuations – although never fully articulated – that he was having non-consensual relationships with his students. While I could have sympathy for Anna Maria at points in the story, her blind ambition made her a bully, lording it over the other girls once she became leader, exploiting her composing relationship with Vivaldi, she was hard to like for the most part. Constable has taken liberties with the bits we do know of Anna Maria’s life and career, in particular, bringing Chiara back in time to be her rival instead of her pupil. I can’t be too cross, for this is a novel, not a biography, and their rivalry is an integral part of the author’s plot. Also, it really irked me that Anna Maria is eventually proclaimed ‘maestro’ – not ‘maestra’. No Italian would deliberately use the wrong gender for the term. However, Constable explains in her author’s note at the end, she chose maestro to represent the Anna Maria’s view of herself as ‘the best’, which I disagree with! My own research into Anna Maria della Pietà to help write this review was limited to Wikipedia, I’m sure Constable has done extensive homework to inform this novel. It’s also rare for a novel set in Venice not to give La Serenissima a starring role alongside the narrative. I didn’t really get a sense of early 18th C Venice, glimpses are rare, but given that the bulk of the story takes place in the Ospedale, that’s hardly surprising.
Quibbles aside, I did really enjoy reading this novel – particularly as it did give a feel for the music played in its pages. I shall look forward to seeing what Constable is planning next.
See also: Laura’s review.
Source: Review copy – thank you! Bloomsbury hardback, (Aug 2024) 336 pages. BUY at Blackwell’s or Amazon UK (affiliate links)
