Read The Mandolin Lesson Online
Authors: Frances Taylor
The Mandolin Lesson (29 page)
I am quite amazed by the realism of the pictures. I think of the style as Renaissance, but I read that the pictures were painted between 1303 and 1305, which means that part of Giotto's greatness lies in the fact that he was ahead of his time. Well ahead. Approximately one hundred years, in fact.
I particularly like the
Baptism
scene, in which the water is a muted emerald green. The bottom of Christ's body, but discreetly not his most private parts, together with some swimming fish are discernible most clearly through the water. It reminds me of another favourite fresco of mine, Jesus walking on the water, in the
Duomo
of San Gimignano. That fresco, painted seventy-five years later by Barna da Siena, also depicted fish in the water.
I love all the colours of these pictures. The reds, sometimes burgundy, sometimes terracotta and often a soft salmon pink. The blues and greens, opaque jewel colours, softened and subdued. Radiance is provided by the gold halos of the protagonists and the many angels. And perhaps the greatest radiance is displayed in the expression of the faces. In the
Resurrection of Christ
, when Mary Magdalene realises that the gardener is Christ, there is a wonderful human moment of longing and unfulfilled desire. Mary wants to touch her âMaster' and looks pleadingly with outstretched arms. But Jesus looks at her with a mixture of firmness and tender love that says that she must not touch him because he hasn't yet ascended. It is both powerfully beautiful and profoundly sad at the same moment.
After my contemplation of the frescoes, I walk to the
Piazza delle Erbe
and I saunter through the arcades of the
Palazzo della Ragione
. The
Palazzo
is a huge civic building bearing a resemblance to the Palladio building of the same name at Vicenza and with a roof that reminds me of an airship. The arcades at the base of this medieval building house shops specialising in various food delicacies. There are shops filled with various local cheeses and cold meats. There are butchers, bakers and wine merchants. There is a fishmonger, a fresh pasta shop and a butcher who specialises only in chicken. It is a paradise for food and drink connoisseurs.
Outside, the market stalls are heavily laden and artistically arranged with fruit and vegetables. The damp air conveys an intoxicating cocktail of smells. There are at least half a dozen different types of salad leaves, bulbs of fennel, carrots, cauliflower, spinach, apples, pears and oranges. The colours are so vivid and everything looks vibrant and fresh. The different fragrances mingle, sometimes vying with each other for attention, and always beckoning my undivided attention.
I make a shopping list in my head. I choose the most enticing vegetables and decide upon the supper that I would cook if I was staying in Padua tonight and I had a kitchen at my disposal. It would probably be roast fennel with fresh pasta and a wonderful salad, including rocket leaves and shavings of raw carrot. The meal would conclude with pear and some local cheese, all washed down by local wine. I am very sorry that I am not staying. I linger for a moment, hoping to distil the images and smells into my consciousness so that I can recall them at will when I return to England.
Now it is time for morning coffee and my visit to the famous
Caffé Pedrocchi
. I am enjoying my morning as a tourist and the luxury of being alone with only myself to please. I feel truly liberated in a way that I have rarely felt on my previous visits. In the past, there has often been some obligation, a deadline, or a worry, either real or imagined, which has interfered with my peace of mind and my ability to enjoy the moment. This morning, I gave myself permission to have a few hours off, undisturbed. For a short while, I am without restrictions. It is in this spirit that I decide to order a hot chocolate, without cream, instead of a cappuccino.
The
Caffé Pedrocchi
is an Italian version of the Pump Room at Bath, without the live music. A place to be seen in. A place to while away time in. A meeting place for mature female shoppers. A place of celebration and, above all, a place of luxury.
My
cioccolata in tazza
is exactly what it says, chocolate in a cup. It is not so much a drink, but rather a bar of the highest quality chocolate, which has been melted in my cup, or so it seems judging from the viscosity. It is thick, rich and creamy, but not too sweet, and I detect a hint of coconut in its flavour. It is moreish and extremely good. I place my chilled fingers gently around the cup and contemplate this most luxurious of beverages introduced in Baroque times.
As I sip my molten chocolate, I survey the surroundings. Classical marble columns trimmed with gold decoration, high ceilings, mirrors, chandelier lighting, marble floor, plum velvet upholstered chairs and white damask tablecloths. I try to absorb every detail and whilst I am doing this, chatter echoes around the vast space.
It is eleven o'clock. Half an hour has elapsed in what seems like just a few minutes. I return to the
Conservatorio
to collect my certificate. Everything is in order and I am content. I visit the ladies' room and collect my luggage from the porter.
As I am rearranging a few items in my bag, a voice says, “
Ciao
.” I wasn't expecting to see anybody I know today. It is one of the mandolin students, the young man from Breganze. He is here today for a piano lesson. We have a chat. I tell him that I am about to depart on foot for the bus, which will take me directly to Venice airport. I will be back in England in a few hours. He asks when I will return. Soon, I tell him, probably for Giovanna's wedding.
“Until the next time then,” he says, and we take our leave of each other.
“
Alla prosimma volta
,” I murmur: until the next time then.
I have become inextricably linked with Italy. Whatever the frequency or duration of my future visits, I know that they will never cease. My commuting to the
Conservatorio
, the four years of formalised study, was just an intense phase in my continuing relationship with Italy. It will never let me go and I will never let it go.
October 2008
âAttending the International Mandolin Symposium in Trossingen, Germany, is always a pleasure for a mandolin anorak like me.'
I have just finished typing the first sentence of my article for a mandolin newsletter. I am quite pleased with my start. I continue to type.
âMandolin talk starts casually over muesli and coffee first thing in the morning and then continues effortlessly until the small hours of the morning when you try to peel yourself away to bed having sampled a few glasses of the local wine or beer. The in-between time is punctuated by talks and concerts when there is a rest from talking, although not from thinking about the mandolin. The six hours left over and available for sleeping seem to pose no problem. Usually I need at least eight hours but during the symposium I am on a kind of mandolin high which gives my body more than enough energy to cope â well at least until I return home, collapsing and in need of some recovery time!'
Quite a nice first paragraph! I'm on a roll now.
As I go on to outline the stories of the various teaching projects from around the globe that were presented, I can't help thinking how far the mandolin has come in such a short time. When I first started playing the mandolin, the novelty factor attracted a lot of my work. People were curious to see something different at a concert. Now I teach children in mainstream schools and just the other year one of my pupils passed GCSE music with an A* using the mandolin for her performance. Even the way music education has changed is incredible. Not too long ago, music was treated like other academic subjects and involved loads of essay writing and theoretical study. Now, the practical element is an integral part of study and assessment. The same has happened in further education, so that most degrees are practical as well as academic. All of which brings me to the Bologna process.
Outside, the wind rustles in the pear tree at the bottom of the garden. It is really in my neighbour's garden, but it somehow feels as if it is in my garden. I notice how the leaves flash pomegranate and cranberry reds edged with gold foil. The colours are remarkable this year, just like the trees I saw last week in Germany. One of my pupils said that the weather has been perfect for good colours this autumn!
Mmm⦠the Bologna process.
A few clicks of the mouse and I am at the official website.
Ironically, in a strange twist of fate, I learnt at the symposium that something called the Bologna process means that the mandolin diplomas are being changed to become degrees along the lines of British degrees. This is happening throughout Europe for all subjects, so there will be parity and transparency between the qualifications of different countries. In Italy and Germany, they are also introducing a new qualification for the mandolin, the Master's degree, again along the lines of the British model.
What this means is that I am already qualified with my Master's degree in mandolin performance, which I got sixteen years ago. Despite never finding quite the right moment to take the final exam in Italy, it seems, strangely, that I am already one of the most qualified people in Europe and I certainly possess a groundbreaking qualification which everyone now understands and values.
There are so many things I have learnt from the mandolin lesson, other than how to play the mandolin. And now, another lesson: I relinquished my attachment to obtaining the qualification, the piece of paper, only to find that it has come to me, and that, in fact, I had possessed it all along.
Andantino:
literally a small andante; andante meaning moving. Andante is usually a slow piece and andantino might be a touch faster or slower.
Appoggiatura:
a leaning note which is written very small in comparison with the normal sized written note. It is a decoration which takes half the time of the big note next to it.
Arpeggios:
chords in which the notes are played separately, one after another.
Broken thirds:
notes that are three notes apart, or next door but one to each other, played separately. A really lovely pattern.
Cadence:
punctuation in music, the full stops and commas etc.
Cadenza:
a bit of solo improvisation often found in a concerto.
Chords:
a group of two or more notes all played together at the same time.
Concerto:
a kind of musical conversation between a solo instrument and a big group of orchestral instruments.
Dominant seventh:
a type of chord with a seventh added and which gives you the feeling of moving on somewhere.
Fugato:
in the style of a fugue where many voices or tunes all sound at once and yet seem to go together. A bit like different conversations at a party which somehow seem to blend together.
Fugue:
see fugato.
Harmony:
notes which when played at the same time sound sweet.
Largo:
broad, slow piece.
Octaves:
two notes played together, which are eight notes apart, counting the lower note as one.
Partitas:
music for a single instrument, made up of a tune with variations and based on dances (sixteenth â seventeenth century).
Preludes:
a beginning piece, historically church organ tuning pieces. The organist would play an improvisation using lots of scales and arpeggios, which were really to check whether the instrument was in tune.
Semiquavers:
quite fast notes, four can be played during a single beat.
Sevenths:
two notes played together, seven notes apart, counting the lower one as one.
Scales:
a series of notes, which move by steps.
Sharp sign:
looks a bit like the hash symbol on the telephone and used in music to raise a note by half a step.
Sixths:
two notes played together, six notes apart, counting the lower one as one.
Tremolo:
the trembling effect characteristic to the mandolin when a note is repeated very fast to sustain the sound.
Trill:
two notes rapidly alternating.
1
Charles Burney,
The Present State of Music in France and Italy
, Facsimile of 1773 London Edition, 1969, New York, Broude Brothers, P.120
