Customer Reviews

The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi's Venice

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the third novel in just over a year dealing with the life of Vivaldi. This one begins by telling the story of two orphans left with the Ospedale della Pieta. These sisters rise in the ranks of the famed female musicians there - Chiaretta as a singer whose looks eventually net her an aristocratic husband and her sister Maddalena as a violinist and favourite of Vivaldi who remains cloistered. The author puts some heat into this latter attachment, on both sides, whilst never quite letting the relationship become a sacking offence. This is suggestive of the composer-priest's much gossiped-of relationship with Anna Giro, but by inventing a new character the author's poetic license can be more fully used. She does this to tell us the story of the two girls' lives, loves and feelings in a way that both feels authentic and keeps us caring. The love and excitement of music are well evoked too. An easy and moving read.

The Four Seasons is set against the backdrop of early-18th century Venice. In it, two sisters are sent to the Ospedale della Pieta, a world-famous orphanage and musical academy. Chiaretta and Maddalena are nothing alike: one marries into one of the wealthiest families in Venice, while the other becomes a musical prodigy and muse for Antonio Vivaldi, the "Red Monk."

It's a good idea, but we've definitely seen all of this before: Barbara Quick's novel, Vivaldi's Virgins: A Novel, is set in the exact same place with nearly the exact same people, and Rosalind Laker's The Venetian Mask: A Novel is set in the same place seventy-five years later, but with the same romantic themes as The Four Seasons. And Corona's writing style isn't as captivating as Laker's is. Corona's descriptions are a little vague, and the city of Venice is a little static, as opposed to the vibrant city it really is.

That said, however, I enjoyed the story. It's derivative, yes, but highly addictive; despite all the book's flaws, I couldn't stop reading. The beginning of the novel is a little shaky and confusing (girls are left at the steps of the orphanage, then go out to the countryside for a reason that wasn't made entirely clear, then come back to the Pieta later), but it picks up once you've read about fifty pages or so. The strongest parts of this book are the musical descriptions; it's clear that Corona is passionate about this subject.

I prejudged, and I was wrong!

I was in a foul mood the day I started Four Season. When I plopped onto my couch and began examining the exterior of the book, I began to get a sinking sensation (yes, you could insert the age old book cover cliché here). I loved the concept of the plot; two orphaned sisters raised in the Venetian orphanage Vivaldi taught at and composed for and how the three lives intersected and influenced each other. But I have been burned before and something on this jacket cover (I can't really articulate what) gave me the suspicion that the pages inside held the expected: superficial characters, a drawn out plot line and the sensationalistic and predictable subjugation and use of women in 18th century Italy!

Wow, was I cranky or what?! I was also very wrong!

Three pages...

That's all it took, just three pages and I was hooked! I honestly started this book in the absolute worst mindset. I even told myself to just power through it and skim if I needed to. Yet, three short pages into this book all of that melted away. I was now emotionally invested in these two young girls who only had each other in a frightening world. I had to keep reading - not skimming, reading! I had to know that my girls were going to be okay. I needed to know that someone would be there to look out for them and shepherd them through a society that didn't exactly view women as much more than pretty things that produced heirs; and if she wasn't pretty, a nunnery was the best she could hope for.

The most remarkable part of this book is the growth of these two women. I found it easy in the beginning to think of them as "my girls." Each moment I had to sit and read I was able to check in on "my girls." However, as the story progressed and they were growing up, Maddalena and Chiaretta could no longer belong to anyone, not even the reader.

The Four Seasons is a magnificent surprise. Read it, I urge you! It is a story of life and the journey we all travel from childhood to adulthood artfully told. Two sisters diverge on the road of life and follow their own paths yet remain true to each other. Laurel Corona has given us a beautiful lens to watch these incredible girls grow into the remarkable women anyone would wish for as a sister, a wife, a friend. Corona even rejects the stereotype of the domineering man who must be overcome and beaten down. Men, women, the Catholic Church, the whispered customs of 18th century Venetian nobility and a demanding and controversial composer of the day are all respectfully represented and honored in this beautiful book.

The Four Seasons should be placed on the bookshelf next to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, another book without a major conflict or dramatic plot twists. Both of these books allow you to follow along as the protagonists grow and learn about the world around them. These are books on the study of life and break free of the formulaic and expected.

A vivid journey back to the Venice of the early 18th century, with its lavish festivals, rich musical traditions and powerful families, this book starts much more humbly, with two sisters abandoned at Ospedale della Pietà. The story of their lives, as they grow up inside the cloistered confines of La Pietà and find different paths in adulthood provide an increasingly details glimpse of life in this vibrant period of Venice's history. The relationship between the sisters is the foundation of the story, providing two contrasting points of view that enrich the story.

Among the other important characters is violinist and composer Antonio Vivaldi, Venice's "red priest" and his innovative music, which almost takes on a life of its own here. While rumors of scandal surround him, here he is portrayed with a great deal of sympathy, as a man driven by his love of music and the struggle to be successful in his chosen field. While he isn't without his faults, he is compelling enough to be interesting.

At times, the story becomes almost lyrical, providing powerful imagery of the customs and culture of this place and time. As the story unfolds, we learn about the complex social dynamics of the Ventian aristocracy, the spectacle that was the opera, and a multitude of other details that paint a vibrant portrait. These threads are woven together into a beautiful tapestry that provides a wonderfully diverting read.

Before I started reading the "Four Seasons" I was a little concerned that the book would turn out to be another version of "The Venetian Mask" by Rosalind Laker. Both books involved two young girls who were brought into the Pieta orphanage/music school, who became enormously successful musicians and went on to marry into the best families in Venice.

Thankfully I was wrong. There are small differences: Laker's tale involved two friends, Corona's two sisters, Laker had both friends leaving the Pieta, and Corona has one sister who remains there her whole life, advancing in musical skill the whole time. And then there were the large differences. Laker's novel is primarily a suspenseful romance like most of her other novels, and Corona's is about a deep relationship between two sisters, the true process and passion that goes into creating and performing music, and how to control your own life when you have no personal freedom. And of course, the historical detail in this novel about the Pieta and the unusual social structure and lives of Venetians in general was far superior to what Laker offered up.

This is the tale of the two sisters (abandoned at the steps of the Pieta by their courtesan mother who is unable to care from them), Maddalena, a shy violinist who will become Vivaldi's muse and Chiaretta, a soprano who's voice and fame will earn her a proposal from one of Venice's most prominent families. Taking place over the course of almost 40 years this novel is a journey not only of the sister's lives and musical progression but of the music itself.

A lesser theme in the novel is the two sisters learning to choose for themselves what their lives will be-an astonishing accomplishment considering they both were raised (and Maddalena lived) in an environment where there was no free choice or free time. Laurel Corona should be proud of having pulled off the self-actualization of these two women who lived in age, and were raised in a way, that definitely did not support it.

In writing style I would compare this book to "Marrying Mozart" by Stephanie Cowell, but the two books have more in common then a kind of mellow storytelling technique. Both are tales of great composers, who were mostly underappreciated in their own lifetimes. Both also involve sisters with music talent with great devotion to each other.

Reading this novel was a calming, but enthralling experience that I very much enjoyed. I especially want to give kudos to the author for not falling into the cliché of making the token the girl's mother left with them at the Pieta (so they would know who she was if ever they met) a larger, more important part of the book. It made the story much more realistic.

The only thing I was disappointed in about this book was the lack of detail in the romantic element, which was very much underplayed. I'm not looking for smut-just a little bit more about why the lovers in the novel felt the way they did. There was a very tender scene between Vivaldie and Maddalena however, that I very much enjoyed.

Four stars.

Two sisters are abandoned at Venice's Ospedale della Pieta by their courtesan mother in the waning years of the 17th century -- suitably, they are only discovered after a musical performance ends. Suitably, because both go on, in Laurel Corona's novel, to become "figlie del coro", or daughters of the Pieta's famed chorus and orchestra, a tourist attraction for those making the Grand Tour.

I had not read Vivaldi's Virgins: A Novel when I stumbled across this; I had, however, read The Venetian Mask: A Novel by Rosalind Laker, once many years ago and more recently when it was reissued. I enjoyed the latter but found it a bit formulaic and occasionally melodramatic; Corona's novel has more heft and her characters are more developed and the plot ultimately more engaging.

Both of the sisters' lives revolve around music, but end up taking wildly different trajectories. Chiaretta, the younger, a lively singer, ends up marrying into one of Venice's first families, whereas Maddalena battles depression and a futile love for her mentor, Antonio Vivaldi -- although she has the ongoing consolation of her passion for the violin. What both sisters must confront, however, is the situation of women in 18th century Venice; in an effort to keep wealth within a family, parents marry off only one of their daughters and consign the rest to convents, while selecting one son to be their heir and leaving the rest to languish on the sidelines. The issue of choice -- a very modern concept -- looms large in Corona's novel, perhaps larger than it could have for either Maddalena or Chiaretta in 'reality'. Nonethless, the ongoing struggle of both women to carve out some part of their world for themselves, to succeed in doing what they want to do with their lives to a modest degree, is a compelling focus for the narrative. And Corona avoids taking the easy way out. Neither sister faces clear choices -- Chiaretta must give up the joy of singing as a career if she is to marry (since the Pieta would never allow her to marry while still performing) or give up the idea of marriage; for Maddalena, already in thrall to Vivaldi and the music he creates, that choice is far less onerous but others rear their heads instead.

There were, however, flaws in this book. While the musical "passages" were both compelling and convincing, the idea of Maddalena as Vivaldi's muse seemed too contrived and wasn't well developed. Meanwhile, Chiaretta's ultimate triumph -- winning control of her own destiny -- seems implausible in the extreme.

Four Seasons will only appeal to women readers and only to those with a taste for character development over drama. (I don't see how other reviewers found these two characters to be flat or dull -- on the contrary, I had a very clear sense of who they were as individuals, perhaps because there was less emphasis on highly dramatic situations.) You won't emerge from this with a strong sense of 18th century Venice, either, although I would argue that given the cloistered lives of Venetian women (through whose eyes we are seeing this world) at the time, both literally and figuratively, that is quite appropriate. It is an interior drama -- the world Vermeer would have painted had he lived in Venice, rather than the world of Canaletto. It is not literature, but it is unusually well written for this genre and the addition of the strong musical element puts it a notch above its peers (where romance and conflict are the main plot devices.) It would probably make a great book club choice.

For those looking for a non-fictional look at the fate of women who had far less control of their lives than these two sisters in Venice, look at Mary Laven's superb, if slightly esoteric, book about convents at the time. Virgins of Venice: Broken Vows and Cloistered Lives in the Renaissance Convent. And of course, for the music: Vivaldi: The Four Seasons.

Our group of neighbors loved this book. Thanks Amazon for bringing this to our book club. We had some amazing conversations that took us beyond the scope of the story.
This is my first read of historical fiction. It has opened up an entire new world of reading.I found myself engrossed in the life stories of Chiaretta and Maddalena. I wanted to know more about Vivaldi and the city of Venice with each absorbing chapter. I cared about these characters and would love to see this story on a movie screen. A special thanks to the author,Laura Corona, for my wonderful introduction into the world of historical fiction.

The love of two sisters is evident in this beautifully written novel. The story tells us about their lives in Venice during the late 1600's and 1700's, and the different paths taken.....but music keeps them forever bonded. They are abandoned as a young child and infant by their unknown mother at a Pieta(orphanage). The Pieta specializes in teaching young girls to sing or play musical instruments, and put on concerts for the public in order to earn money to stay in business. The sisters grow up, and one is a fantastically superb singer, while the other is a brilliant violinist, tutored by the great Vivaldi. The singer marries and starts her life away from the confines of the Pieta, while the other sister remains there to lead a quiet life of teaching music, and performing in a few concerts. Their lives are intertwined over the years when Vivaldi writes music for them for different functions. The life in Venice during that time in history was very difficult, especially for virginal women from the Pieta.....they either married or became Nuns. The sister's different lives had restrictions on both women, but they always remained true to themselves, and to each other.
Not being familiar with Latin, Italian, or music terminology, I was slightly lost while reading this compelling story, but was heartened to find a helpful Pronunciation Guide besides the Glossary, after the end of the story. (Wish I had known about it earlier.) Laurel Corona wrote a wonderful novel that was impossible to put down, at times.

I was sadly disappointed in this book.

Set in 18th-century Venice, it follows the lives of two sisters who are abandoned at the Ospedali della Pietà, an institution for orphaned, abandoned, illegitimate or indigent girls. It was also famous for its music, its entirely female chorus and orchestra, and at this time the composer Antonio Vivaldi taught there.

The combination of Vivaldi and Venice, both sprightly and beautiful, ought to result in a sprightly and beautiful novel, but it doesn't. Although Corono does a decent job of describing the constricted lives of women in this place and time, the book falls oddly flat. I think it is because, in telling us (rather than showing us) Chiaretta's and Maddalena's thoughts and feelings, she has been unable to make either of them (or Vivaldi) come alive. We have no sense of their personalities, what really makes them tick, and, in the end, therefore, we don't care about them.

However, if this book inspires any readers to learn more about its themes, then it's worth the read. Although they are academic, rather than light fiction like this, I'd recommend interested readers to try Mary Lavey's Virgins of Venice: Broken Vows and Cloistered Lives in the Renaissance Convent, or the essays on Venetian courtesans in The Courtesan's Arts: Cross-Cultural Perspectives Includes CD.

Anything Vivaldi fascinates me, so of course I was thrilled to see another novel centered around him. This fun, easy read is hard to put down. Vivaldi is presented as a very colorful character who dominates every scene he's in. The two sisters, Chiaretta and Maddalena, whose lives ultimately take very different paths, are enchanting characters, each with her own very touching story.

I thoroughly appreciate Corona's careful attention to detail in her musical descriptions as well as in her lively and meticulous "painting" of early 18th-century Venetian life. "The Four Seasons" is truly a delight for all the senses.

Sarah Bruce Kelly
Author of THE RED PRIEST'S ANNINA