#ChallengeAccepted - 1st Place
Discord and Harmony
Written by Rosetta McGee
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Rosalina
My brother is a clot. A clot with no sense of timing – which all subtle and educated ears agree is the most important element in any musical ensemble. Dannazione it vexes me to hear him in the next room endlessly rehearsing with his Banda danzante veneziana, getting it wrong time after time, and speaking of time, why can’t they agree on one? How can anyone dance when the tabor is spewing up endless trochees that are so uneven no one knows when the next one is about to start. It’s only two beats, a long and a short. Is that so hard? At the same time the timbrel is jangling and tapping through its fussy fancy flourishments, and his blasted recorder is completely taken up with its own importance. Playing the right notes isn’t everything, after all!
Hugo
A sharp-tongued viper. A bossy know-all. She thinks she runs this place with her flouncing skirts and her screeching violin. Merda I’ve had enough of that little mignotta. Everyone knows she’s from the orphanage and just because she saws away all day long at that contraption of catgut and horsehair doesn’t give her the right to look down on me.
Rosalina
Banda danzante veneziana – hah! He’s not from Venice at all. And he’s not my brother either, we were both adopted. He came from Lughetto, that horrible village up the road. What our guardian saw in him I’ll never know. Well, that’s wrong, I do know – it was his smarmy smile and his wheedling whine. Papa is a pushover for syrupy fawning. When Hugo presented himself some of the women actually fainted at his supposed beauty. Beauty! Hah. A pretty lip and a mop of blonde hair do not equal beauty.
Hugo
Some of us worked hard for our good fortune, shoveling shit and chasing goats and wrestling hogs – yes, and even sucking up to rich patrons like Papa. I was five when my parents were killed by robbers. Farmer Luca took me in, but let me tell you he didn’t stand for laziness -- he was quick with a switch to the backs of my legs. Still, he gave me plenty to eat and clean straw every month to sleep, and I learned to work hard. When I was 15 I escaped to Venice.
Rosalina
I was raised at the Ospedale della Pieta and had violin and singing lessons with the divine Maestro Vivaldi. When the Medicis visit Venice they always come to our performances and my playing captivated them, so they sponsored me. Things were going quite well until Papa brought Hugo home. A swineherd! He was rabidly jealous when he saw how my violin brought me favours. So every time I was asked to play, he just happened to be passing through the room with his horrid little stick. How can a swineherd be a musician? Only by playing the most irritating instrument, the recorder. Sounds like a sick parrot.
Hugo
It has the voice of angels, from the cool celestial tones of the great bass to the cheerful cherub of the sopranino. I apprenticed myself to an instrument maker and sought out a good teacher. Just because I know how to use an axe and a scythe doesn’t mean I can’t interpret the genius of Rameau and Lully with sensitivity. My teacher told Papa about me and he took me into his protection. I’ve put together a little consort, just me and a tabor and a timbrel, and we’re sounding pretty good. If it wasn’t for that bitch in the next room everything would be heavenly.
Rosalina
Last night was the most disastrous development yet: Papa ordered me to play in Hugo’s band. Me and my beautiful new Guarneri violin – playing with him and his stupid recorder. I tried to reason with Papa: it won’t give me enough time to practice, recorders are mere accompaniments, there is no suitable music for it, I would be alone in questionable company -- but he wouldn’t hear any of it. Then I tried my sweetest smile, giving him kisses and telling him how much I loved and respected him, thanking him, praising him, and I even threw in a few tears – niente. You will play in Hugo’s band.
Hugo
But here’s the latest pox in this stew: Papa has decided that she’s going to play with us! With my own Banda danzante veneziana – a violin! I told him it would wreck the timbre, she doesn’t know our repertoire, we use different tuning, it would be impossible to keep together, I would rather eat sheep dung. Nothing worked – she tossed her black hair around and scrunched up her pretty little face and stuck out her tongue at me! And all she plays is that damned Vivaldi! I wish she would get over him and try out some of the Lully, which we find is so much more refined and elegant. But no – it’s Antonio Antonio Antonio day and night.
Rosalina
Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse. Papa is giving a ball and not only do I not get to be presented, not get to wear a new ballgown, not get to eat sweetmeats, not get to meet and smile and chat with eligible men, not get to hear the latest gossip, not get to dance – not that dancing to THAT band would be very enjoyable -- not only that, but I have to be seen in public, and be heard in public, playing with that clumsy, off-beat mob of losers. My life is over.
Hugo
Papa is putting on a ball in two weeks and he expects us to provide the music all night long, for dancing, for dining, for mingling – which would have been fantastic, what an opportunity to be seen and heard by all the best families – but now we have to drag her along so she can steal all the limelight with her pouty lips and her tiny ankles. Che cazzo sono rabbioso.
Rosalina
First rehearsal. They smell. But then, they are men aren’t they?
Hugo
First rehearsal. She didn’t say much, just held her nose in the air as always. She thinks because she can play in tune we should all bow down and kiss her feet.
Rosalina
We are sorting out the tempo and rhythms – grazie deo. It’s still a load of slop overall (what did I expect anyway?), but swapping parts makes an interesting change.
Hugo
Women! She’s making me crazy with all her damn ornaments and sforzandi and tenuti. Where does she think we’re going with this anyway?
Rosalina
How have I lived without Lully? He is a genius.
Hugo
Vivaldi called in to our rehearsal yesterday and made some very astute suggestions. There may be something there.
Rosalina
The way his lips embrace the mouthpiece makes my heart race.
Hugo
Why do I get so damned hot and sweaty every time she looks at me?
Rosalina
Wonderful discovery! The violin doesn’t require me to take a breath to start playing, but today by chance I breathed at the same time Hugo did. And like a consort of angels, we started playing at exactly the same time – AND at the same tempo. Even the timbrel seemed to be in the moment. The effect was heavenly, and it lasted well into the second page. I was quite breathless. In a good way. I think.
Hugo
A strange moment at today’s rehearsal. I started playing as usual, and I expected everyone else to come in late, as usual, and have to hurry to catch me. After all, I’m the leader. But she wasn’t late – she was exactly with me, and exactly in my tempo. I was so surprised I glanced up and she had a mysterious hint of a smile on her lips. Have her lips always been so red?
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