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Suddenly she knew Alessandro Stradella. He came out of the shadows and into the limelight again. She heard how, from Rome to Venice to Turin to Genoa, he was highly regarded for poetry in music and romantic regret. |
Murdered on the streets of Genoa in 1682, his untimely end broke hearts and satisfied avengers, while giving life to the Legend of Stradella, fact and fiction making him a muse and miscreant for centuries to come. |
She had no idea how she might meet him, in person and imaginings, years passing and circumstances predicting it would never happen. Until he was at her door, alive and well in the superb port city of Genoa where accolades had fallen on him and yet more trouble too, the rumor that he relished one as much as the other following him everywhere... |
She was glad he was still talked about, and that she was listening. For this elusive Italian Baroque composer was the man she was waiting for. She wasn't an accomplished musician or singer, or prosperous patron, or a beautiful woman who didn't need to be anything else. But she might appeal to his quieter moments, those that fell between the lines of his best and worse ones, which even he didn't write about in letters appealing to those positioned for bestowing favors and forgiveness. |
Really, he let her in - on his brilliancy and charm, ego and playfulness, and tendency to mix business and pleasure - allowing her behind the scenes of his work and high and low life style, a house near la via Luccoli where she began with him by surrendering to that inexplicable compulsion a writer, a novelist has to tell and suppose. |
A Stradella Sojourn |
"Novel" Study of 17th Century Composer Alessandro Stradella, by DM Denton |
Copyright © 2012 by DM Denton All Rights Reserved |
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