Book Nook: The Four Seasons

The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi is such an iconic piece of music, used in DeBeers diamond commercials for as long as I can remember. Who was the genius that composed that piece? Who were the players to first tease out the notes until they swelled into life? 

Laurel Corona's The Four Seasons recreates the city of Venice in the early 1700s and the Ospedale della Pieta, part convent, orphanage, and music school. The two main characters, Chiaretta and Maddalena, are sisters who were left in the care of the Pieta's sisters and raised to become singular musicians. The story initially focuses on Maddalena's love of the violin and her apparent natural gift for playing it. Through the violin she meets Antonio Vivaldi: priest, composer, asthmatic, teacher and something more. Between Maddalena and Vivaldi a connection sparks. They act almost as if a married couple, but Vivaldi uses the Pieta to make money for his compositions and disappears frequently to different Italian opera houses for better commissions. Maddalena is tormented by her feelings for Vivaldi and his seemingly callous behavior towards her. Later in the novel the focus switches to Chiaretta and her singing. It is her breathtaking soprano that leads her into a marriage with one of the wealthiest and powerful families in Venice. She is the one that pushes her sister's career forward and encourages music performances at her new villa. 

The sisters' lives are inextricably linked with music and with Vivaldi, but this novel is really about the lives of the two women and not the composer. However, the authro jumps between big sections of the women's lives that I felt their story was disconnected. The sections of the book are more like a piece of art, showing only certain sections of a lifetime. I really liked the characters and wished there had been more meat to their lives. The setting that Corona describes is incredibly detailed and brings Venice alive on the pages. My biggest issue with this book was how awkward and childish discussions of sex and menstruation felt. I think the author was trying to mimic the uncertainty and awkwardness of this period in a woman's life, but the language was stilted and made reading these passages seem very silly. It broke me away from the story.

If you really enjoy the artistic biographical novels I would definitely suggest the authors Susan Vreeland or Tracy Chevalier. These types of novels tend to be focuses mainly on female figures or tangentially female characters rather than men, but the stories are solidly written and entertaining.

*This blog is part of a grant Medfield has been awarded through the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Library and Services Technology Act administered by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners.