The Mandolin Lesson (2 page)

Within an hour, I am driving to the concert having arranged for a neighbour to look after my son and having booked the last ticket, a return, by telephone. I am not used to arranging my life at such short notice, but to be fair, Ugo had said that he had written to me. Another letter had obviously gone astray. Is the Italian postal service really so relaxed?

The concert consists of a number of concertos with various soloists. The playing is the most elegant that I have heard for a long time. The magnificent Baroque surroundings of the Mansion House provide a good acoustic and an ambience that is evocative of the period of the music. I am particularly enraptured with the Vivaldi double mandolin concerto, played by Ugo and his pupil, Dorina.

Afterwards, I dine with Ugo and Dorina at their hotel in Bloomsbury and we talk about mandolin music until midnight. The Masterclass, a term used in Italy to mean a music course, begins tomorrow in Venice. There is to be another one at the end of August in Brescia. I didn't find out this information previously because of the letter going astray. I am unable to leave for Venice immediately because of my domestic commitments and the Brescia dates clash with other family commitments. I also know I shall have difficulty in finding someone to look after my son since everyone will be away on holiday in August. It is impossible and I shall just have to wait patiently until next year. Dorina very kindly invites me to stay with her.

*

A few weeks later and another unanticipated event occurs when my mother phones and offers to look after my son. It means that suddenly I am free to attend the course in Brescia.

The Brescia course is a real turning point because although until now I have had a great desire to improve my playing, I hadn't understood precisely what I was searching for. Ugo spends time explaining posture to me. He has a different right-hand technique from mine, which, he explains, is considered more modern than the way in which I have been taught. My technique allows greater freedom for the Romantic tremolo, but his technique is more secure for greater control, security and speed in Baroque music. My wrist is arched and my forearm is just slightly touching the edge of the instrument's body. His wrist is straight and his forearm is in contact with the strings behind the bridge. My mandolin sits on my lap with the fingerboard at a forty-five degree angle to the floor. His mandolin is parallel to the floor. I feel dismayed that I have such fundamental changes to make.

At the same time, being my first solo trip to Italy – I had once visited Finland by myself for a concerto engagement – it is a heady experience. Although I have made several visits to Italy, before they were always essentially holidays, even though these holidays often included some experience connected with the mandolin. Naturally these visits were also always with other people. This time my visit is only for the purpose of improving my mandolin playing skills. I am completely on my own, which is both exciting and, at times, frightening.

The room we play in is a modern white attic room, which overlooks red tiled roofs and potted plants. The floor of the room interests me because it has the appearance of a large Lego base: hundreds of small raised circles made of a synthetic material, perhaps a type of plastic or rubber. Around the walls are enlarged photographs of Ugo and other local musicians with their instruments.

Every morning, we start at half past nine and play for two hours; the first hour being technique, exercises and explanations. The second hour is real music, which we usually play together and then individually. The playing is punctuated by advice from the Maestro. Then follows an hour of discussion about mandolin history. How many music lovers know that Scott Joplin's rags were intended for a mandolin orchestra? After a two-hour lunch break, there is another two hours of music-making: chamber music, mostly
suonato a prima vista
, played at first sight, or in other words, sight-reading. One afternoon we play music by Telemann, written originally for four violins, but serving the mandolin well because of the similar tuning and fingering. It is most enjoyable music, radiant and energising.

I am always animated when hearing new sounds; sounds I hadn't known were possible on the mandolin. Exquisite decorations; jewels crafted not in precious metals and stones, but in notes. Vibrations which are received by the ear and somehow have the power to move our souls. The neatest tremolo, the quietest
pianissimo
, the shimmer of a passage of notes played with the utmost rapidity and articulated with the greatest precision. These and many more resonate deep within me.

*

I return home to London and I spend hours agonising over the difference in posture and right-hand technique. I know that interpretation, the expression and shape given to music, is of the utmost importance in performance. Musicians are not merely machines churning out vast quantities of notes; their vocation and their artistry is to place these notes in time and space, so as to sculpt the sound and communicate with the listener. At the same time, I am aware that in order to achieve such eloquence, it is necessary to have an appropriate technique. It is like trying to write poetry with a limited vocabulary. In such a case, I should improve my linguistic skills. With the mandolin, I should also try to improve my technical skills – and yet changing such a fundamental aspect of my playing, whilst still trying to honour playing commitments, seemed an impossible task.

In the autumn, I perform in a concert at Waltham Abbey: I am soloist in Vivaldi's mandolin concerto. I wear a turquoise green dress enriched with a gold thread design. It contrasts sharply with the stark stone structure of the abbey's interior. Internally, I am in conflict about the two approaches to right-hand technique. On the one hand the glimpsed brilliance of my new sound is encouraging, whilst on the other hand the difficulties of making physical adjustments to posture are dispiriting.

*

It is Good Friday and I have just put my shoes on to go to church, when I hear a knock at the door. I wonder,
who could possibly be at the door?

I open the door to investigate.

“Hello, I am Giovanna Berizzi,” she said, “a pupil of Ugo Orlandi.”

I see a slim young lady with long blonde hair.

“He gave me your address,” she continued, “but not your telephone number, so I took a chance in coming to visit you.”

We immediately start to chat and find that we have so many interesting things to talk about that our conversation extends over many hours, punctuated only by coffee and homemade hot cross buns.

Giovanna tells me that she is studying English at the University of Brescia and is spending six months in England as part of a special exchange with the University of York.

I tell her about my life: teaching the violin, playing the mandolin, passing my Master's degree, being mother to a seven-year-old boy who has just started life as a cathedral chorister.

I abandon all ideas of church, feeling somehow that this is an auspicious meeting: the start of a friendship that might lead me back to Italy and mandolin lessons.

*

Giovanna has returned to Italy and sends me a letter thanking me for my hospitality and being anxious to repay the kindness in some way. (She and her fellow student stayed with me briefly before returning home.) I had asked for information about the National (Italian Mandolin) Conference, which I understand to be at Busto Arsizio. I have absolutely no idea where Busto Arsizio is, but I quickly discover that it is north-west of Milan. I have read about the conference in a magazine called
Plectrum
, a quarterly newsletter published by the Italian Mandolin Federation. The magazine mysteriously arrived by post. Giovanna explains in her letter that she had enquired about the conference and Ugo had said that the location changed every year. He couldn't tell me anything about it yet, but Giovanna would let me know where and when it was as soon as possible.

Giovanna also has news of a concert in Germany that she is taking part in. The concert is to be given by the
Orchestra
di Mandolini e Chitarre ‘Citta
di
Brescia'
, the City of Brescia Mandolin and Guitar Orchestra, of which she is a member. Sometimes, the orchestra is more simply known as
Orchestra a Plettro ‘Citta
di Brescia
', The City of Brescia Plectrum Orchestra. I first became acquainted with this orchestra when I was invited to a rehearsal as part of the mandolin course I attended in Brescia. In addition, Giovanna tells me that she will be attending a mandolin course at Salo, on Lake Garda. She says that it would be the same course as the one I attended at Brescia three years previously.

*

July and a postcard arrives from Giovanna. It was postmarked Heidelberg, Germany. It says that she is there with all the other members of the orchestra, but she has stopped to write my postcard and now she is lost!

*

September and Giovanna writes again, telling me her news about the mandolin course she attended in Salo. She tells me that it was most interesting and that she met a violinist from Ferrara who was studying mandolin on the course. Apparently, he and I met at the Brescia course. His name is Sergio Zigiotti and he asked Giovanna to say hello to me. I can't remember him clearly. There is still no news about the conference, although Giovanna reassures me that I would be welcome to stay with her and her parents at their home.

*

Halfway through October and a postcard showing an atmospheric photograph of Venice at sunset arrives. Giovanna, as promised, is writing with details of the conference, which she now attractively describes as a mandolin festival. It is to be in Venice on the 30
^th
and 31
^st
of October. Her mandolin orchestra is to play there on both days and she hopes to see me there. I am dismayed that after months of asking for information I have less than two weeks' notice to arrange the trip. Needless to say, it is impossible. I arrange to stay with Giovanna for a week in November instead. At least I can visit Ugo and the orchestra and have some contact with the mandolin world in Italy, even if I am unable to take advantage of the structured events, the concerts and discussions of the conference.

*

Here I am in Brescia, perhaps by mistake or by default, perhaps by design.

I spend two of five days visiting Ugo in his new house situated in a small village called Monticelli Brusati, which lies to the north-west of Brescia and is very close to Lake Iseo. The houses in Ugo's road are all modern and constructed mostly with basements, instead of second floors. There are shutters at all the windows with rows of terracotta pots filled with pelargoniums and herbs. All around are vineyards and one neighbour has filled his slightly extended garden full of vines, under which small dark brown chickens run freely.

Giovanna accompanies me on both of the visits. I take my newly acquired Embergher mandolin to show Ugo on the first visit. Luigi Embergher was responsible for evolving a concert mandolin which was, and still is, considered by many to be the Stradivarius of the mandolin world. I already have an instrument made by Embergher's pupil Pasquale Pecoraro, but my new Embergher is a superior instrument. However, Embergher died in 1943 and my instrument is dated 1957, which is a mystery. There is not the same tradition of fakes and forgery in the mandolin world as there has been in the violin world. The most likely explanation is that when Embergher's most favoured apprentice, Domenico Cerrone, inherited the instrument making business in 1938, the instrument labels continued to bear Embergher's name.

Ugo admires my new instrument and suggests that I have some adjustments made to the bridge to ensure the instrument is in perfect working order. I don't have anyone at home who I know would be willing to undertake the work. Most luthiers just don't have the experience of mandolins and are reticent to experiment with something unknown to them. Ugo has a solution. He sends me to Filippo Fasser,
liutaio
, luthier, who has a workshop in the historical centre of Brescia. Giovanna kindly takes the instrument to Filippo on Wednesday morning and I collect it on Thursday evening. It feels quite strange and wonderful to me. Here I am in a foreign country taking my instrument to be repaired and it is as if, for a brief moment, I am really living here, and yet I know that I live somewhere else.

My first visit to Ugo's house is also a memorable occasion on account of the
spaghetti
alla
carbonara,
which Ugo makes for lunch. He shows me, step by step, how to prepare the dish. First he fries some cubed bacon called
pancetta
. He then adds chopped garlic and a surprise ingredient, fresh sage from his garden. He takes about six of the sage leaves, tears them up and sprinkles them into the frying pan. Finally he adds the cooked spaghetti, beaten eggs and grated
parmigiano
, Parmesan cheese. It is delicious. We follow it with a salad of fresh green leaves from the garden and homemade salami, made by Ugo's father-in-law. Ugo's wife, Marina Ferrari – also an accomplished mandolinist and music teacher – is at home today and shares the meal with us.

*

After my second visit to his house, Ugo proposes a pizza lunch en route to the airport. I am very grateful for a lift all the way back to the airport, since I have noticed that even the small suitcase I have brought is a nuisance on trains and buses. It would be all right if I didn't have to contend with an awkward shaped mandolin case without a strap!

During the car journey, Ugo randomly asks: “Yes, but what are you going to do with your mandolin playing?”

I tell him about my plans for researching repertoire and giving concerts of the music I have discovered, but he doesn't mean that. I say that I don't really understand the question. I have a Master's degree in performance and that is really as far as I can take my playing in terms of studying. Yes, I know that I have done a lot of the practical work by myself – I am mostly self-taught – but I have achieved something very important and significant for the mandolin. I have taken the playing as far as I can academically. The only other thing I could do now would be to write a thesis for a PhD, but that would be purely academic.