The Mandolin Lesson (20 page)

There have been some changes in Brescia during the summer. Giovanna now has her own flat; her father has retired and her parents have moved back to their roots in Treviso.

I can't wait to see Giovanna's new flat. It is in the historic centre of Brescia, in a little side street just off the
Piazza della Loggia
. It is situated over a dress shop. To gain access, my friend has to insert a huge iron key into the keyhole of the door at the side of the shop. Behind this door and stretching out in front of us is a long whitewashed corridor with a vaulted ceiling and an uneven flagstone floor. It feels as if we are entering a wine cellar.

“This is one of the oldest buildings in Brescia,” my friend proudly informs me.

At the end of the corridor, there is an opening to the right. We struggle up some stone steps, turning sharply back on ourselves, and take care not to lose our balance with the worn-away middle part of the step. After the usual unlocking procedure, with many turns of the key, the thick and heavy door to the flat swings open.

Inside, the high ceiling is formed with dark brown planks of wood, which give it a rustic appearance. It is quite different from the modern plain plaster ceilings I have seen in other people's flats. It reminds me of rural buildings in Tuscany and I can well believe that the flat is part of a medieval building, which has been renovated and converted into flats. The walls are whitewashed and scattered with stylish music posters. The main room doubles up as a living room and a kitchen. The bedroom and bathroom are separate and self-contained. They open onto a tiny and thin corridor, which connects the entrance to the main room.

In the bedroom, Giovanna has prepared a guest bed for me and as I place my mandolin and bag on the bed, I notice her cat scurrying from under my bed. At the head of my bed, there is a little recess which gives way to a window. Giovanna opens the window to reveal louvre shutters painted in dark green. The shutters open to the left and right of the window. Down, far down, below is a courtyard. It is here on the window ledge that the cat likes to survey the world. He sits silhouetted against the light. Occasionally, I notice his head jerk as he reacts to a passing bird and then remembers that it is unsafe to move any further forward on the ledge.

In the evening, Giovanna and I prepare a simple supper of pasta with an olive and tomato sauce. The sauce, which comes straight from a jar, is a staple store cupboard ingredient and one of my favourite convenience foods. We add some grated
parmigiano
and accompany it with fresh crusty bread. It is followed with salad leaves, dressed with salt and olive oil. It is interesting that among my friends and acquaintances in Italy, wine vinegar and pepper are seldom used for the dressing of salads. Finally we conclude with an espresso, which we ceremoniously sweeten and take time to savour.

After we have washed up, we sit down to play mandolin duets. We spend several hours entertaining ourselves without realising it is getting late. Over and over, we play movements that we enjoy or are trying to improve. We are endlessly fascinated by the music and it feels enormously comfortable playing together.

At last we realise that we are tired and stop playing, but we find ourselves chatting about life. We sit at the kitchen table nursing large bowl-like cups of warmed, sweetened milk. It is comforting and a little nostalgic. During my adult life, I have rarely taken the opportunity to have a milky drink at bedtime. We continue our philosophical discussion until quite late and then we retire to our beds.

I am awakened on Sunday morning by the sound of a bell; the clanging of a single note, signalling the imminent start of Mass nearby, is full-bodied. The haunting reverberations tell me that I am truly in Italy, even though the room is still darkened by shutters. I fall asleep and awaken several times with other bells tolling. I love their sound. I snuggle further down under the embroidered sheet. I could listen all day, being constantly lulled to sleep and then awakened, lulled to sleep and then awakened…

*

Early Monday morning, I prepare myself quickly for the day. I have laid out the clothes that I need and I do the bare minimum that is necessary in the bathroom. Giovanna now has a job in an office and I don't want to inconvenience her by disturbing her usual routine. I can shower when I return this evening. After breakfast and rapid teeth brushing, we both depart for the day.

Giovanna gets into her car to go to work, but I am on foot today. Normally I would be going to the station to catch the train to Padua, but it is still October and the mandolin course hasn't yet started for the new academic year. Instead, this week, there is a special mandolin course in Brescia at the young people's music centre where the mandolin orchestra rehearse. It is the same location that I came to for the very first mandolin course I ever attended and it is the same place that I returned to for the summer course I took part in when I stayed with my family at Breganze.

I wave goodbye to Giovanna and walk towards the
Piazza Loggia
. I follow the path around the back of the
Palazzo della Loggia
. The billowing shape of the roof is so pleasing to me. It echoes Palladio's
Palazzo della Ragione
at Vicenza and I have read that Palladio was indeed a collaborator in the completion of the building. I have also read in the same guidebook, an English tourist guidebook that Giovanna's mother very kindly gave to me, that the lead roof was destroyed by fire in 1575, less than one hundred years after the first stone was laid in 1492. Amazingly, the restoration of the sixteenth century roof took place only relatively recently in 1914.

After the
Palazzo,
I turn immediately left out of the
Piazza
and into
Corso G.Mameli
. This takes me directly to the
Torre della Pallata,
where I must turn right into the
Via Battaglie
for the music centre. The whole walk takes about twenty minutes.

Corso Mameli
is just coming to life and I am interested in the different shops I pass. I note a bookshop, which I will return to later, and a shop displaying ladies nightwear and lingerie catches my eye. I move invisibly between people going about their daily business. Elegantly suited businessmen stop for an early morning espresso at a bar. One glances over the headlines of the
Corriere della Sera
he is holding and another chats on his mobile phone. I remember once in Assisi seeing a Franciscan monk in a bar drinking espresso. As I looked down, I saw his bare toes peeking out of his brown leather sandals. When a mobile phone rang, I was utterly astonished to see that it was the monk who was answering. It was an incongruous sight, a religious who followed a life of simplicity and poverty using a symbol of contemporary technology and wealth.

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.