The rest of April passed with my head in a cloud of music. Within two days after working on the first movement with Vivaldi, I had finished the second, and sent a copy to him via Giuseppe. I could not wait until the following night’s visit to show him.
The second movement had the same “voice” as the first. In truth I had come to think of the violin part as a character all her own, like the prima donna in an opera. She seemed to me to be a water nymph, a mermaid, singing her song of sorrow and longing to the untamed sea.
It began softly, then eventually the cantabile melody would grow louder and higher in pitch, only to suddenly fall off in volume and move back to the lower end of the violin’s register. I meant it to mimic the rhythm of sobbing, almost as if the strings of the violin were saturated with tears. The tutti sections, where the entire orchestra joined in, were quiet and hushed, attempting to console this bereft siren. Or so I thought in my more fanciful moments, and so I settled on La sirena—The Siren—as a title for the work.
Vivaldi was equally enthusiastic about the second movement, declaring it to be just as fine. He had some comments for revision as well, which I was already using to rework the piece even as he spoke them. Now I understood how he could compose hours into the night without being aware of the time; how he could write so many new works so quickly. Once I had entered into this haze of creation in earnest, it seemed endless melodies and harmonies drifted through my mind, and all I wanted to do was write them down.
I finally had the chance to play my own compositions, with Vivaldi looking on. The two movements were both easier and more difficult to play than I expected. Though I had virtually every note committed to memory, to actually execute those notes upon the violin was another thing entirely. Now I was back in the role of player, of performer: my fingers needed to commit the notes to memory, to find the best way to get from one to the next, an action that I found I had not considered during the composition process.
It embarrassed me that I could not play my own compositions flawlessly, but Vivaldi saw nothing odd in it. “Just because you wrote it does not mean you do not need to learn to play it,” he said. “You did not write it in one sitting without error, did you? Why should your playing of it be any different? And consider, you wrote all this without benefit of a violin beside you to test out certain sections. I have never written that way myself—not for the violin, in any case.”
Quickly enough, though, I could play both movements with a level of competence that satisfied me, and I soon gave in to Vivaldi’s demands that I teach him. I was certain that the entire thing was an exercise in futility—surely he could already play them both better than I—but, to my surprise, this was not always the case.
“You are dotting that rhythm, Tonio,” I interrupted, for what felt like the tenth time.
“Yes, but does it not sound livelier that way?” he asked, stopping.
“Yes, but the dotted rhythm comes in the repeat of that section, not here. The contrast is important, as the listener will not expect it.”
He sighed but did not protest further.
“Now back to the beginning of the solo section, if you would,” I said.
In the second movement, I was forced to criticize him for playing too stridently.
“It is a lament, like weeping, do you see?” I said. “Gentler, caro.”
When he finally played it as I intended, the result moved me to tears—something that had been happening all too frequently for my comfort of late.
“I hope the next piece you write will be happier, cara,” he told me later that night, as I was curled up next to him. “Something bright, and not so full of sorrow.”
But we both knew the true sorrow was yet to come.
* * *
I had been delaying telling Vivaldi about my impending summer visit to the Foscari villa, the official invitation having been tendered and accepted long ago. Yet as mid-April came, I knew it could be put off no longer.
He remained silent for a moment after I explained the Foscari family’s desire to get to know me—and my father—better. When he looked up and met my eyes, there was a strange, wistful half smile on his face, as though he were already missing me. “And by the time you return to Venice, you will no doubt be betrothed.” It was not a question, and he did not phrase it as one.
“Tommaso has told me that is what he wishes.”
He looked at me for a long while with that heartbreaking expression on his face. Finally, he asked, “Do you love him?”
Reeling, my breathing quickening, I turned my back to him, under the guise of situating my violin in its case.
“Do you? Even a little bit? I would know the truth, Adriana.” He paused. “It is just … this would be easier, if you loved him.”
My eyes were filled with tears, making the pane of glass in his front window look as though it had dissolved into a sheet of water. “I cannot love him,” I said. “I love you.”
He stepped close behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and drawing me close against his chest. I covered my mouth with my hand, trying futilely to hide my sobs from him.
“I am sorry,” he whispered in my ear.
He held me for a long time. And even as I clung to him like a castaway to a rope, part of me wished that he would let me go, so that I might get on with drowning.