Hidden Voices Read Online Free PDF

Given the rude example of Anetta earlier, I have no heart to scold her. It would be a mean reward for her defense of me as well. There are enough girls here who find me haughty and aloof. I do not need another enemy, no matter how insignificant.

I T IS SATURDAY, and those of us who are to be in tomorrow’s concert have been practicing with Maestro Gasparini all morning. The violins are beginning to sound to my tired ears like a swarm of bees and the wind instruments like the lowing cattle I once saw driven along the Riva, only heaven knows why. I sense how well Father Vivaldi has prepared us, however, by the way in which the
maestro
looks almost pleasant from time to time and makes only feeble attempts at correcting the dynamics of any phrase. Our ranks are bolstered by some of the older
maestre,
and, as I have said, Anna Maria, our most accomplished violinist and Father’s obvious favorite, is playing the first violin solo. But in fairness, he has not neglected my part, but made it both wildly colorful in some passages and calm in others. In fact, the parry between my violin and hers becomes a highly charged duel that I’m beginning to think we can each win if we keep our wits.
    Of the three concerti we will play tomorrow, this first is the most difficult and the most delightful. There will be a short
sinfonia
as well and a lovely cantata composed only last week. We’ve been told there are to be important personages from the papal city in the audience and a famous composer from Vienna named Signore Bach. Plus the usual overdressed dukes and wives or consorts. From our high perch, we always look down upon a sea of color, fur, and feathers that glints with gold and silver embroidery and flashing jewels. Here and there are the bright
berrette
of the monsignori, the elaborate frontages of the women, and very occasionally the tall hat of the doge. Rosalba claims it is a great blessing that we can’t see the features of some of the dukes and merchants too clearly, and it is just as well that they can’t see a number of us.
    Maestro Gasparini taps the podium with his stick, the signal to put aside our instruments and assemble for the noon meal in the refectory.
    “And do not return until after my nap,” he instructs us. “You play like drunken street performers right after lunch. Take a nice long siesta or go for a walk.”
    The little
iniziate,
the young assistants, pass among us with the corrections Father Vivaldi has made that have just arrived from the copyists. We can never be certain that there will not be additions or omissions in any piece of his music, even after it is performed, and we are all anxious to discover what has been changed.
    After a few minutes, Silvia moans and smacks the case of her theorbo. “He’s removed the most beautiful part of the second movement in the first concerto. Poof ! Just like that.”
    “I think it’s a vast improvement,” says Luisa.
    “Only because it isn’t your notes he’s stolen. It’s always my notes. He shrinks my part every time. Why does he write the notes down at all if he’s just going to take them away?”
    “He doesn’t know he’s going to take them away,” says Luisa, “until he hears you play them.”
    “That isn’t true, Silvia,” I say quickly to assuage her hot temper, but it is too late. She has already reached for a handful of Luisa’s black hair and pulled it hard enough to bring tears. When I get up and try to separate the short little squabblers, it occurs to me that I could easily smash their niggling heads together if I were so inclined. Instead, and only because of my new role as
maestra
and section leader, I hold them apart, one hand on each head, until they have calmed a bit and stopped squealing. The few ducats I have recently begun to earn for my position are not nearly enough pay for handling this sort of business.
    For all concerts, though we can barely be seen behind the grillework that surrounds the high choir balcony on which we