Cristina of Sweden, as we know, loved to chatter a lot. Poor Descartes realized this at his own expense, as those chats cost him his life.
Now, lacking philosophers or men of letters or diplomats or perhaps high-ranking prelates, even her personal doctor would do just fine for a discussion.
The doctor in question was named Pierre Michon Bourdelot and, in addition to being a renowned doctor and scholar, he was a music lover and musician, albeit only an amateur, himself.
Bourdelot had been toying with the idea of writing a history of music that also dealt with the effects of music itself on the human soul. He had discussed it with his regal patient, and she had given him a story that was perfect for that book: the saga of Alessandro Stradella, saved by Music and condemned by love.
She, Cristina, remembered that Stradella well. Young and charming, son of a certain Cavalier Marc’antonio (who lost his noble title for having abandoned the Piacenza castle to the papal troops during a siege in 1643), who then grew up dependent on the Lante family in Rome. Brilliant and brash, overly bold, he had made a name for himself as a talented musician already in his twenties but then was forced to flee Rome accused of misappropriating some church funds and persecuted by his reputation as a libertine.
Cristina, though she had, in matters of love, tastes of a very different kind, could not help but be struck by the exuberant charm of that young man and the beauty of his music, which she did not fail to sponsor.
The story Cristina told her doctor was beautiful, damn if it was beautiful! So beautiful that it was picked up and rewritten by many, in France and England. Enhanced and embellished in a thousand ways until, almost two centuries later, it came to the ears of Stendhal.
And Stendhal, a lover of anecdotes (especially those concerning Italy), did not let such a story slip by: he rewrote it twice, once in “Vies de Haydin, Mozart et de Métastase” and a second, more substantial time in “Vie de Rossini.” Turning our Stradella into a true romantic hero.
And so the biographical myth overshadowed and partly obscured the beauty of the Music.
What a pity.
Well, in that story our Alessandro had left Rome for Venice and there, besides working to stage his works, he took on roles as a music teacher for the noble families of that city.
It was thus that one of these noblemen, a Pignaver, decided to entrust his mistress Hortensia to Stradella's capable care so that he could refine her singing skills.
But Alexander’s attentions were all too prompt and did not limit themselves only to the sweet Hortensia’s vocal abilities.
And the two fled to Rome.
Pignaver, blinded by rage, hired two infamous assassins to wash away the honor suffered in blood, with the promise of three hundred pistols plus travel expenses.
The assassins followed the two lovers, first to Naples and then to Rome. There, they learned that their target was to perform his oratorio at the church of San Giovanni in Laterano. Thus, on the set day, they mingled with the crowd of onlookers and waited for their prey.
And here the miracle happened.
The music, that music, moved and disturbed the two assassins so much that it “changed, as if by miracle, their rage into pity, and both convinced themselves it was wrong to attempt the life of a man whose genius for music attracted admiration throughout Italy and resolved to save him instead of killing him.”
They waited for him at the church’s exit and revealed their intent and that of his persecutor. They confessed how his music had touched them and advised him to leave as soon as possible for a safe place.
Now, it took me some time, but I have convinced myself - based on my research - that that oratorio must have been this “Ester liberatrice del popolo hebreo” which here, rather than review, I am suggesting you listen to and discover.
I am not a reference point because I have a true passion for the Baroque. Not just Music or Painting and Architecture! No, really all of Baroque, even the most opposed by sharp and prudish criticism, even the literary kind, just to say.
And how can one not love a century that sees incredible figures like the poor Daniele da Volterra - the infamous “braghettone” - (that would be a story worth telling!) or in which poets even composed odes celebrating the lice of their beloved (“like silver beasts in a forest of gold”)?
Make the small effort to overcome the temporal distance that separates us from this music; embrace it as something current, and you will discover its unsuspected modernity, its wild sweetness, and this little effort of yours will be abundantly rewarded. We will be there, pervaded by this music, along with the two assassins who tried to save the two lovers.
They tried without succeeding.
In fact, Alessandro and Hortensia took refuge in Turin. And there, although protected by the Savoys (who, however, kept Hortensia in a convent until our Alessandro was persuaded to marry her), they were again reached by the blades of new assassins hired by the relentless Pignaver.
One of them seems to have been Hortensia's own father.
Stradella was saved by a miracle.
A miracle that wasn’t repeated in Genoa, where the two lovers had gone after his recovery.
Hortensia wished to visit Genoa and its sea. But the day after their arrival, they were both slaughtered in their room.
When Stradella died, he was just over forty.
Now they may tell you that Hortensia (perhaps) was actually an Agnese Van Uffele and that the furious and cuckolded nobleman was supposedly a Contarini (Alvise or Luigi), much more powerful if less persistent - or maybe a Grimani or a Foscarini or a Pigelli or who knows who - and that our Alessandro took Agnese to Turin and abandoned her there instead of marrying her. That he never went to Rome, ça va sans dire, with her (and his failed assassins). That the daggers that reached him in Genoa’s Piazza Banchi (instead of in a hotel room) belonged to the relatives of a lover wronged by our Alessandro, or an actress he impaled, or were assassins hired by the Lomellini family for other obscure reasons.
They might tell you all that, but they are truths like any other. Hypotheses. Guesses.
In reality, we know almost nothing about Alessandro Stradella.
Or rather, there are two things I know about him: I know that Arcangelo Corelli stole the idea, the realization, and even the name of the “Concerto Grosso” from him and that Vivaldi stole his fame.
And so I prefer to be transported to S. Giovanni in Laterano, to sit with my demons next to the two assassins. Watch them caressing their daggers and, little by little, let themselves be captivated by the power of Music. Spy on their “fury turn into pity,” as with them, my warrior spirit also quiets while he and my demons stop roaring for a while.
And then I like to think of Hortensia.
Hortensia, for whose sweet smile even assassin’s blades are faced.
Hortensia, lost along the streets of Genoa.
Hortensia.
- For my Hortensia.
Loading comments slowly
