Zusammenfassung
Zusammenfassung von Stradella
Für wen es gedacht ist
Readers who enjoy a romantic adventure with music at its heart, sharp comic villains, and vivid pictures of Baroque Venice and Rome, with duels, disguises, serenades and scheming churchmen along the way.
Worum es in diesem Buch geht
Stradella is a historical romance by F. Marion Crawford, set in Italy in 1670 and built around the real Neapolitan composer and singer Alessandro Stradella. Crawford, who wrote many novels about Italy and lived there for much of his life, mixes music, love, comedy and danger. The book gives you a runaway love story, a pair of unforgettable hired killers and a portrait of Venice and Rome in the age of Louis XIV.
The tale opens in the Palazzo Pignaver in Venice. Senator Michele Pignaver, a vain amateur poet and composer, plans to marry his young niece Ortensia and hires the famous Stradella to polish her singing. The teacher and the pupil fall in love over their lutes, and the nurse Pina quietly helps them for reasons of her own. Crawford tells all this with a dry humour that is never far away.
From there the story runs through a night of storm, a flight across the mainland, a prison in Ferrara, a wedding in a convent and a journey to Rome. Along the way you meet two shabby Venetian gentlemen who sell their swords. Let us begin with the Senator and the girl he means to make his wife.
In dieser Zusammenfassung
- 1A Senator plans a cheap marriageFree
- 2Lessons turn into a secret love
- 3A night of rain and a kiss
- 4Pina offers a way out
- 5Two swordsmen and a lady in a monk's robe
- 6A prison in Ferrara
- 7Rescued by the men who mean to kill him
- 8Rome, rivals and a serenade
- 9Traps are laid on Saint John's Eve
Punkt 1 von 9
A Senator plans a cheap marriage
Senator Michele Pignaver is a rich, vain widower of about fifty who writes sonnets and songs and gives artists little more than a thin supper. He decides to marry his niece Ortensia as soon as her education is done. She is seventeen, the penniless daughter of a wastrel, raised in his house by his late wife.
Ortensia is dutiful, but she sees through him. To her he is a stuffed doll of importance with a cruel streak, and his bristly kiss on her forehead makes her shudder. She accepts her fate, as Venetian girls were taught to do. She thinks that when he dies she will be a rich widow.
The Senator plans for her to sing his ninety-seven songs to astonished friends, which will cost him nothing. He is certain that no musician counts as a man, and no servant either. This blind spot of his drives the whole story.
One spring morning, as she practises a song by a composer she does not know, the meaning of the music suddenly dawns on her. She feels a first thrill of longing that she cannot name. In that mood the Senator brings in the composer himself, the handsome young Maestro Alessandro Stradella of Naples.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
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Questions about Stradella
What is Stradella about?
It tells of the composer Alessandro Stradella and his pupil Ortensia, who flee Venice together to escape her uncle, a vain senator. Two hired swordsmen follow them to Rome, and the story mixes love, music, comedy and danger.
Is Stradella a true story?
Alessandro Stradella was a real Italian composer and singer of the seventeenth century. Crawford builds a novel on his life and invents most of the details. He says the Bravi are inventions, though a Venetian noble is said to have sent assassins.
Who are Trombin and Gambardella?
They are two Venetian gentlemen who have lost their rank and live as hired swordsmen, called Bravi. Trombin is the talker, short and pink, while Gambardella is tall, dark and sour. They are paid by several people at once.
When was Stradella written and where is it set?
Crawford wrote it as a historical novel for readers of his own day. The action takes place in 1670 in Venice, Ferrara and Rome, with scenes at the Lateran, the Quirinal and the court of Queen Christina.
Is Stradella easy to read?
The story moves quickly through short scenes, with plain dialogue and a lively comic touch. Chases, disguises and duels carry you along, and the two swordsmen supply a steady stream of amusing speeches.