The Mandolin Lesson (19 page)

Today is May 1
^st
and Giovanna is arriving with her friend Eleanor to stay with me for a week. They hope to do some shopping in London.

Yesterday my son returned to boarding school after the Easter break and the day before Ette and Marco returned to Bologna. I am busy taking linen off beds, putting it in the washing machine, hanging out washing, airing the house, ironing only that which is necessary and making up new beds. I am seeing all sorts of other chores to do and I must consider some menus and find time to go shopping. I have no time for my pupils and I have no time to practise. Today, I am just in a frenzy of domestic activity.

*

Giovanna and Eleanor return to Brescia today and tomorrow I go to Italy to stay with Giovanna and to have my mandolin lesson. All this coming and going. Spending time with Italians even when I am not physically in Italy leaves me with the impression that I have not left Italy since my last visit.

*

In Brescia, I resolve to readdress an imbalance. Giovanna and Eleanor shopped extensively in London. They continually returned to my house with all kinds of bags and parcels containing their purchases. Inspired by their enthusiasm, I long to have time to shop in a relaxed and pleasurable manner, and I have decided that this time I will make a concentrated effort to have sufficient time for some serious shopping. I have saved up a little money and made a list of things I would like to buy.

High on my list is a good pair of sunglasses, which are so necessary for my time in Italy. On Saturday I walk about the Brescian shops in the late afternoon sunshine, feeling strangely carefree. I carefully study the windows of the clothes shops, looking at the styles and shapes, colours and textures, and making mental notes. I categorise all the garments, those that I would like if I had enough money, those that please me, those that would suit me, those that are indispensable. In the last category, I have to narrow it down to a handful of items. My budget will cover one blouse, a pair of shoes, a bag and a pair of sunglasses.

I find a cotton blouse, really a female shirt in design, with a tiny blue and white check pattern, which I purchase. I have seen other people wearing similar shirts at the
Conservatorio
.

The shoes I choose are a pair of tobacco-coloured loafers in soft leather. They are a delight to buy. The lady in the shop is so accommodating. I feel no sense of pressure, which might rush me into making the wrong decision. The shoes are flat and of a classic design. All my friends wear these with jeans or trousers and they will be practical for the long walk between Padua station and the
Conservatorio
. They are also half the price I would pay in London if I were able to buy the same shoes. My feet are unpredictably sensitive and I have found it difficult to find stylish shoes in soft leather.

My new bag is a designer
zaino
, a rucksack, which is made from a kind of exclusive canvas material. I have only seen these in Italy and I have noticed a lot of students on the train using them to carry their work. Giovanna also possesses one of these bags and I have admired it for some time. They are very practical because they can be slung over a shoulder or even worn on the back. I choose a colour called sand, a neutral taupe colour.

The purchase of my designer sunglasses mirrors the experience of my husband's purchase at Marostica during last summer. A handsome young man serves me and shows me every attention possible. He is so kind and helpful, but I think this reflects that he knows the product he is selling and that he lives in a culture where service is a pleasure and is considered normal. I choose the perfect pair and feel genuinely reassured by the assistant that I have made the correct choice. As he processes my credit card, I am aware that hundreds of designer specs are displayed openly all around me on the walls. I walked into an optician's shop at home, not my usual optician I am glad to say, and asked to see their designer frames. They only had six pairs, locked in a glass case. The assistant was extremely frosty and suspicious of me. When I tried on the second of two pairs offered to me, I placed the first pair on the desk in front of me and I was brusquely admonished. Apparently, although the shop was empty, my carelessness might have encouraged theft. Obviously the assistant felt vulnerable to the threat of crime, but there is something wrong when potential customers are made to feel so uncomfortable. Needless to say, I promptly left. Here in Brescia, all tensions are dispelled and I bask in the balm of trust.

The assistant smiles at me as he returns my credit card and receipt and the parting rituals begin.

“
Grazie mille.
” A thousand thanks. “
Buona fortuna con i studi.
” Good luck with the studies. I am always having personal conversations with perfect strangers. ‘
Buona sera'.
‘
Arrivederci'.
Every time I leave a shop, there is always a sprinkling of these courtesies. I am probably a little old-fashioned, but I do like politeness and good manners. I leave feeling that I am walking on air.

My sense of elation has little to do with the material goods I have purchased, although they are all beautiful and useful and I am pleased with them. I am not experiencing a high as a consequence of participating in the modern leisure activity of consumerism. Rather I am filled with a rush of happiness, a result of life-enhancing interaction with the people I encountered.

At the bus stop in
Via G.Mazzini
, a stone's throw from the ancient
Duomo Vecchio
, the Old Cathedral, I see an astonishing sight. The bus stop has become electronic. A message moves past telling me that my bus will arrive in nine minutes. The Old Cathedral is sometimes referred to as the ‘
Rotonda
' on account of its round shape. It was built on the site of the Roman thermal baths and it is still possible to see some of the remains of these baths inside. It is literally only yards from the bus stop. I stare at the tiny flashing lights as they make their journey across the screen. I have seen so many examples of the old juxtaposed with the new. Somehow, they always seem to blend comfortably together.

The message now tells me that my bus will arrive in four minutes. There is a sign in music, a curved line like an eyebrow placed over a dot, which when placed over a note means stop and pause, giving more time to the note. This sign is often described as a ‘pause' but is known technically by its Italian name ‘
fermata
', which translates as ‘stop' and is also used for ‘bus stop'. I often amuse my young pupils by explaining that they should think of a bus stop when they arrive at a note marked with a pause sign and that they should wait on the note, increasing its length, just as one might wait at the bus stop for the bus. Now that Italian bus stops have electric signs, I have a bit more to add to my analogy.

On the final day of May, I return to Bologna to squeeze in one final lesson before the end of the scholastic year. The weather is balmy in the opening days of June. I buy a new short sleeve cotton T-shirt in navy blue. It is not really a T-shirt in the usual baggy sense, it is a small top, which fits neatly under a jacket and goes well with jeans. I try to buy at least one new piece, even if it is something small, on each trip in order to build up my wardrobe. I remember how last year I didn't have the right clothes and Ette so kindly lent me a T-shirt so that I would feel more comfortable.

It seems incredible that this visit marks the end of the second year. Time has flashed by and already I am halfway through my time of planned study. And in all this time, although I never know from one moment to the next where the money is coming from, I always seem to find enough in my bank account. Somehow, even when things seem impossible, at the last moment I get a phone call and there is a new pupil or someone requiring some extra coaching. Unexpected things are always happening and somehow there is always sufficient for my needs. I am extremely grateful to have made it this far.

“Two hours then,” I repeat. I nod my head in agreement and I get out of the car. In front of me, soaring in the soft September light, is the magnificent dome of the Royal Albert Hall, one of my favourite buildings in London. Ever since, as a pre-adolescent, I watched the
Last Night of the Proms
on television, in black and white and with Sir Malcolm Sargent conducting, I have kept a special place in my affections for this concert venue. It symbolises something stirring, something patriotic and very English.

My husband drives away and I have just a couple of hours before he returns and I have to accompany him to Evensong at the cathedral. I turn away from the dome and I cross the road, walking towards the Royal College of Music. This weekend there is an exhibition of Early Music at the college and I am anxious to make the most of my precious time. I would like to have a complete day or even half a day free, but I don't, so I must make the most of my opportunity. As I walk towards the entrance, I privately declare my intention to myself. I silently tell myself that this time I will meet someone who will help me to achieve my desire of owning a Baroque mandolin.

This all sounds crazy. I have met many lute makers before and tried without success to interest them in making an instrument for me. When I completed the last day of the summer mandolin course last year, I remember thinking that I must have a Calace instrument – a different modern instrument from my own. I wanted to have the top-of-the-range concert model because so many people have this instrument in Italy, and I thought Ugo might like my playing better if I had the same instrument as he has. At Christmas I managed to sell one of my instruments, my first Pecoraro, but by the time I did so, I had already changed my mind about the Calace. The Calace isn't right for me for normal use. It is too heavy and I like the neatness of the cambered fingerboard of the Pecoraro or Embergher instruments. It was silly of me ever to entertain the idea that the choice of instrument would make such a difference to my playing. My perception was somehow temporarily clouded – the idea a fleeting whim. I know that I can make crude student violins sing and that skill is more important than choice of instrument. It is well known amongst violinists that a poor player will not sound any better just because he or she is given a Strad to play on.

So when I sold my mandolin at Christmas, another idea was born. I had for some time wanted a Neapolitan Baroque mandolin, but it is such uncharted territory. I only know of one luthier in Italy making these instruments. He has made two that I know of and the last time I enquired, there was a three-year waiting list. Clearly a simple solution would be to find a luthier here and now I have sold an instrument, I have some cash to plough into the project. In my final two years of the mandolin course, we have to study the performance of Baroque music in more detail and we have to be familiar with period instruments. Without experiencing such an instrument, I am not sure how this is possible, so I am determined to have my own.

I stand in the queue for tickets. In my mind I repeat my intention to myself again, affirming that I will meet someone that will help me to manifest the instrument of my dreams. It is like a prayer, but it is more positive and authoritative. I have been reading a lot of self-help books during the summer and I am very interested in the power of the mind and its ability to influence what happens to us. I have been reading about positive thought, affirmations and visualisation techniques. I have been thinking about this instrument that I would like to own, how it will feel to play and how it will sound.

It is my turn to buy a ticket. I also ask for an additional ticket to visit the historic instrument museum of the college, which is open today by special arrangement. I had read about this in a music magazine. I checked my books at home to confirm that the museum holds a number of mandolins, including those of the Neapolitan variety. I particularly want to view an instrument by Vinaccia, the most eminent of mandolin-makers in the Baroque period.

As I enter the museum, I am welcomed by the metallic throb of chords interspersed with wiry threads of decoration being executed on a harpsichord. I am excited to see so many people exploring the keyboard instruments and being allowed to play the exhibits. The museum appears to be accessible and friendly. The instruments I wish to view are, however, in glass cases in a viewing gallery reached by stairs to the left of the entrance. About halfway along the gallery, I find the mandolins. There are quite a few examples, some of the Milanese variety and some of the Neapolitan variety, including a Vinaccia. I spend some time studying the latter instrument and trying to fix every detail in my memory.

I return downstairs to speak to the custodian of the museum. I have quite a lot of questions about the Vinaccia mandolin. Sometimes, details of measurements and plans of instruments are available and can be viewed by special appointment. Sometimes, this information isn't available and it is possible instead to view the instrument outside of the glass case. Permission can be given for photographs to be taken and for measurements to be recorded in order to make a copy or a similar instrument. Without this valuable facility for research and the possibility of new instruments – replicas of the worn-out and fragile originals – these period instruments would decay until they became completely extinct.

As I am engaged in conversation with the custodian, she is distracted by several other enquiries. Suddenly, she disappears and I am left mid-sentence. For a moment, I feel the impossibility and hugeness of what I am embarking upon. I would like a copy of an old instrument that no longer exists except in a museum. It cannot be bought in a shop and I have not yet found a maker who will accept the commission to make such an instrument. Occasionally old instruments might come up at auction, but it is extremely rare and usually they are beyond being restored to playing condition. Makers on the other hand would have to take a risk in agreeing to construct a new instrument. A mandolin needs a mould, a carved piece of wood in the shape of a half pear, around which the ribs of the back are moulded. The mould is a pattern for the instrument and it is necessary to build one, from the dimensions taken from an existing instrument, before work can even begin. It might mean a great deal of research and the learning of new skills. I suppose the likelihood of finding someone interested today is minimal.

In the same moment, as all this flashes though my mind, a voice says: “I wonder if I might help you?”

I swing round to see a slim young man with long hair neatly tied back in a ponytail and melting brown eyes.

The young man continues: “I'm sorry, but I couldn't help overhearing your conversation and I wondered whether I might help you.”

He introduced himself as Chris Allen, a luthier who specialise in lutes and hurdy-gurdies.

I begin to tell him about the Vinaccia and we walk up to the display of mandolins. Chris's face lights up when he sees the intricate mother-of-pearl inlay on the instrument I show him. His knowledge about instrument making is so interesting and he listens carefully and respectfully to everything I tell him. Soon I see that he is very enthusiastic about the instrument I would so love to own and he is expressing an interest in making it. We go for a cup of coffee to continue our discussion. We talk for well over an hour. I am elated at finding someone who is interested in my project, someone who is not afraid of a challenge, and who is both approachable and reassuring.

As I walk down the steps back onto the street, I remember my intention. I smile to myself.

“Yes,” I whisper under my breath, “it worked.”

Positive thinking really worked. Other people might dismiss it as a coincidence, but I believe it made a difference. I am filled with intense joy, confident that, whatever the obstacles, the new mandolin will somehow happen.