The Violin Maker's Wife

Book summary

In 1714 Cremona, young Katarina Rota finds herself caught between love and ambition as she navigates her path as a gifted violinist and maker. Mentored by Giuseppe Guarneri but bound to marry another, her life unfolds with heartache, societal struggles, and lasting ties. Set against Italy’s vibrant luthier culture, this story explores love, resilience, and art.

Excerpt from The Violin Maker's Wife

The parish of San Matteo, Cremona, Italy.

August 1714

‘Giuseppe?’ The old man’s voice boomed in the cluttered shop with its wall of small wooden drawers behind the ware-bench, all neatly labelled with their mysterious contents. Rosin. Peg Dope. Peg Drop. Peg Pins. Cat Gut-assort. Whirling Chalk. And many more, some so faded Katarina could not read them.

‘Giuseppe,’ he called again over his shoulder. ‘I’ve need of you, lad. Fräulein Rota here wishes a violin played for her.’ Andrea Guarneri turned back to her. ‘My fat fingers be too clumsy now to do ‘em justice.’ He looked down at the offending digits with obvious distaste.

How Giuseppe had reacted to his father’s summons Katarina did not know, for it was the violin that held her gaze when he cradled it like a golden, newborn infant bringing it out from the workshop. And when his fingers danced on the fingerboard, she marvelled how the bow seemed to belong in his other hand like an extension of his flesh. Yes, she was entranced, but she did not look at his face.

Later, it made her laugh – and it was much discussed between them over the years – to have no clear picture of him at that first encounter when she remembered his grey-haired papà so clearly (and, in truth, he had not been so very old then). How could she not have noticed Giuseppe’s unruly black curls for they were the single most striking thing about him? Never mind his beauty. He always claimed to remember his first sight of her clearly, though his wildly differing descriptions led her to believe otherwise. To put it bluntly, she had been a colourless, unformed sort of creature then. A plain child, (and what is worse for a child than to know it?).

And the sound the violin made that morning seemed to her otherworldly, like singing beyond the top of any possible human range before plunging down to a bass deep and rich as molasses … down into darkness. One word filled her thoughts. Heartbreaking. To her surprise, she saw Leda brush away a tear. Leda was not one for displays of emotion either in herself or others. Especially not in Katarina. Yet her appearance belied her nature, being soft and fair with a pillowy bosom and a child’s dimples. Her eyes, the innocent blue of a china doll’s, were full of fiery steel when caning her charge’s hand for forgetting her Latin declensions.

Might it be the contrast with the playing Katarina had heard the Sunday before in the cathedral that had so moved her? While that sound had led her to the violin district to find out more about the instrument, she had not anticipated the extent of the difference. And violins in a church service? Who would have imagined it? Not John Calvin. In Katarina’s church the only music came from the human voice. And that was often discordant.

Though it could be claimed she had arrived there in the Guarneri workshop in a way that seemed preordained, it had been a random choice made to silence Leda’s complaints, walking the cobbled streets around the Basilica of San Domenico.

She really had no idea which workshop to enter yet opened that fateful door as though it had been the one she searched for and, indeed, she had wished Leda to think it was. (She had told her that she looked for sheet music for the pianoforte.) Whilst her eyes adjusted to the gloom after the dazzle outside, the pungent smell assailed her, though she had no idea what made it then. But it smelt exotic and so somewhere she ought not to be. That thought had made her smile. Though, in truth, she held no truck with predestination especially when proselytised by her father’s Calvinism. Even then she thought of it as her father’s and not hers for she had already decided the idea of God held little interest for her, and most certainly not that one.

So, on the previous Sunday with her father laid low by a summer ague, she had joined some of the officers’ families whose religion took them to Cremona’s magnificent Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta with its great rose window over the portal, its octagonal baptistry, and the Torrazzo towering above. She had explored it many times, overawed by the weight of whispers and echoes lost in the great height of its vaulted ceiling, disappearing into gloom. The scent of beeswax and candle smoke, incense and flowers, and the sweetness of their decay, seemed embedded in its ancient stone. She had gaped in awe at bright frescoes telling the stories of Abraham and Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. The Passion of Christ. Jesus with the doctors. Every time she visited, she found something new to marvel at … the inlaid wooden choir screen, the great altar cross crafted from silver and gold … but she had never experienced a Mass there. Needless to say, her father knew nothing of this and would not have approved, being especially censorious of everything papist.

It did cross her mind that should there truly be a God, would he not prefer the glory of a cathedral laboured over for centuries in his name to the little wooden church close by the banks of the Po, which the Calvinists seemed to believe would please him more? And, of course, she had not expected violins to fill the pauses in the Mass which it turned out, had been a poor introduction to what this astonishing instrument could do.

It was some time before she learnt about a violin’s tonal range and later still what Giuseppe had played for her that day. A concerto by Tomaso Albinoni, one of the earliest compositions for the violin virtuoso. There would be many simpler pieces for her to master before she was ready for that.

When she told Signor Guarneri her intentions, he had shown no reservations that a girl, small for her thirteen years, should be so much in command of her own life that she could say with confidence that her father would purchase the three-quarter-size violin he had suggested for her and pay for the lessons she would need. Katarina never doubted it then, and neither did Andrea, he told her later, which was why he had not asked Leda for conformation. It seemed they were both good judges of character. Why had Leda not interfered in the exchange? Might she have believed Katarina’s father had truly given his permission or did she hope her charge would be humiliated by his angry refusal?

Several days later, when Anja fetched Katarina to the morning salon, she could honestly say it was the first time she had looked at Giuseppe. She found him gazing around the room with undisguised admiration. That it was filled with sunlight showed it to best advantage with its gilded marble fireplace and bright frescoed ceiling appropriately depicting the muses, and all its polished mahogany furniture with silk upholstery gleaming. The floor-length casement windows were open to the garden as it was already hot though early still, and the scent of roses in full bloom filled the room.

‘Palazzo Poli is where the Austrian commandant lives.’ He smiled a little uncertainly. ‘Is he your papà?

‘His deputy. We have this apartment because he is.’

‘Ah.’ Giuseppe nodded.

She took a few moments more to study him surreptitiously while he surveyed his surroundings still. He was tall and broad-shouldered with dark-lashed eyes the colour of honey, and wild black curls already escaping the leather throng at his neck, and Katarina unexpectedly found she had no idea what to say to him. ‘You have it, I see.’ She gestured towards the violin case he carried, quickly feeling heat on her face at the absurdity of such a remark. He would hardly arrive to give her a lesson without the means to do so.

‘Er, yes.’ He held it up as though to prove it.

She realised then he was likely feeling just as awkward. Katarina turned to the maid who was openly grinning at their mutual discomfiture. ‘That will be all, Anja.’ The girl bobbed a curtsy and left.

With that, he seemed to gather himself. ‘Shall we start, then?’ He placed the case down on a side table and brought out the violin, smiling as he handed it to her.

When she took it, she let out a small gasp for it was so much lighter than she had expected. She stroked its rich amber patina which glowed in the sunlight as though lit from within. ‘How can it weigh so little?’

He laughed. ‘Like lifting a hen, no?’

She had never held a hen but understood what he meant. While it looked a large bird, it was very feathery. ‘I suppose this is not full size, so—’

‘Makes little difference.’ He rubbed the bow with a piece of a clear yellowish substance before placing the instrument beneath his chin to play a scale.

‘What was that you rubbed on it?’

‘Rosin. Without it, the strings wouldn’t sound.’

He dropped it into her hand, and she frowned sniffing it. ‘It smells like pine. What’s it made from?’

‘Pine resin.’

Again, she blushed. A stupid question.

Giuseppe played the scale again before handing her the instrument and positioning it with the chinguard against her neck and the bow clasped firmly in her right hand. When he stood behind her to place her fingers on the fingerboard, she felt his heat and noticed the same odour that permeated his workshop. She began tentatively and the noise she made, even with his clever fingers guiding hers, was not pretty. Finally, she thrust the violin back at him, mortified. ‘I didn’t expect to sound quite so bad.’

‘Everyone does when they start.’

‘Even you?’

‘I’m sure I did but I can’t remember it. I can’t even remember when it was. I must have been just a young lad.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe three or so. What age are you, Katarina?

‘Thirteen.’

He tilted his head, studying her. ‘You look younger.’

Katarina felt herself redden again, knowing it would be all too obvious on her pale cheeks. White as milk and treacherous (blushes, and ugly freckles with the sun’s slightest touch). Not to mention lank brown hair. And worst of all she was ridiculously small and completely unremarkable. She eyed his tawney skin and those wild black curls. Unremarkable he most definitely was not. ‘Can you really teach me to play? Perhaps it will be beyond me?’ She felt close to tears even thinking of such a failure.