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from DM Denton

It's Carnevale Time!
Join the festivities in this full chapter excerpt from
​ A House Near Luccoli!

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Stradella Coat of Arms



​Before her was a gracious creature, especially his hands composing in mid-air and his eyes shifting slowly in observation and expression ... without music's influence he might not wander like a prince among his subjects, though who could think that was all there was to him?
~from A House Near Luccoli​

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​I cannot resist echoing the words of Caroline Gianturco who wrote what is now considered to be most well-researched and accurate resource on Stradella: Alessandro Stradella, 1639-1682: His Life and Music (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994):

"... I am glad to have had the opportunity of spending these many years uncovering the actual Stradella, a fascinating and lively man, who wrote excellent music of a personal stamp. Had circumstances given him the possiblity, he would surely have been surprised by my continued refusal to give up the often discouraging and elusive task; I like to think that he would have been pleased that I did not."​              

A House Near Luccoli is
Highly Recommended by the Historical Novel Society

he remarkable Baroque composer Alessandro Stradella stands at the center of Denton’s bright, sparkling novel A House Near Luccoli. Unmarried, mid-thirties Genoese woman Donatella encounters the volatile, slightly disreputable genius and at first is appalled by his manners and eccentric ways, but she and others are also gradually taken by his undeniable charm.

Denton is an unapologetically enthusiastic writer, imbuing even her minor secondary characters with three-dimensional life. Her research into all aspects of the period is thorough but not wooden; this is foremost a book of characters and character-study, ultimately in many ways a book about how friendships form ... immensely enjoyable ... Highly recommended.
                                                                          Stephen Donoghue
Historical Novel Society 

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​Alberto Sanna is "a musicologist and violinist from Sardinia, Italy, who specialises in early modern Italian music. ​He recently released the first-ever complete period-instrument recording of Alessandro Stradella’s beautiful yet neglected Two-Part Sinfonias."
A House Near Luccoli focuses on chance encounters, beautiful music and the paradox of genius through an imagined intimacy with one of the most legendary and undervalued figures of Italian Baroque music, Alessandro Stradella.
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New 5 Star Review
from the Director of the Early Music Ensemble
The Teares of the Muses
New York University Collegium Musicum Viol Consort

In “A House Near Luccoli,” DM Denton successfully blends the lives of a fictional female character with an existing historical figure to create a tale that is both believable and moving. The 17th-century Italian composer Alessandro Stradella is well enough known to those of us in the early-music field, although his works are under-appreciated today. However, in the Wikipedia article’s words, “He enjoyed a dazzling career as a freelance composer, writing on commission, and collaborating with distinguished poets, producing over three hundred works in a variety of genres.” When the story begins, Stradella has already committed a serious crime, bedded too many women, fled several cities in disgrace, and survived a near-fatal attack. He has also written quantities of amazing music, much of it sacred. Donatella, the fictional character, is hardly his type. And yet, a most unusual relationship, largely built on mutual respect, slowly evolves.

Denton demonstrates the depth of her research and her immersion in the period by depicting in detail a 17th-century household’s furnishings and daily rituals. The thoroughness of the description is especially appropriate since the no-longer-young Donatella is a virtual prisoner inside her own house. We can visualize the furniture, the food consumed, and the scrubbing, dusting, and scouring that go on in the dark, slightly musty and scruffy rooms off the staircase and hallways. We see the practical kitchen, and even a small walled garden, scented by citrus trees.

Denton’s subtle rendering of the “pecking order” in a class-conscious society is quite stunning, from the lowest of the servants, to fish sellers, to Donatella herself, to Stradella and the musicians he directs, and upward to the top-tier nobility. Of course, dominating each social class from low to high is the inevitably superior male. The members of these separate classes often rub shoulders, although they usually remain mindful of their pre-ordained positions in life.

Now we come to the crux of why Donatella’s character is so interesting, and from the outset, we are spared the typical feminist-heroine of historical fiction, annoyingly spunky and incongruously stuck in a period costume. True to her century, Donatella is not in an upwardly mobile social position, to say the least. She is not particularly beautiful, or, at her age, marriageable. She is not wealthy or a noblewoman. Rather, she is in stasis, genteelly trapped, living under the thumb of an authoritarian aunt while caring for her aged grandmother, her cats, and a scrappy household. When Stradella appears on the scene, she begins to use talents she hardly knew she had, and without guile or flirtatiousness, she fascinates the libertine composer through her goodness and honesty. In spite of his bad-boy reputation, Stradella treats this modest woman, a hidden romantic, with unusual deference.

The long sentences made up of multiple clauses separated by many commas bothered me at first, and occasionally I had to reread them to grasp the content. But after a while, I fell under the spell of Denton’s unique style. The overall effect is gauzy, like peering into another era obscured by the haze of centuries. But upon closer examination, I sensed steely precision. These sentences and paragraphs are a paean to Italian baroque architecture—outwardly flamboyant, but powerfully robust, the clauses curling back upon themselves. Her collage-like cover illustrations also embody the delicacy and strength of the novel.
Margaret Panofsky, Director of The Teares of the Muses
nd author of The Last Shade Tree


​From dedication of la forza dell/amor paterna ...

One of the most beautiful distinctions of the sun is to disburse the mine of its golden splendors not only over the nearest countries but also to the most remote lands.         
                                                                       ~ Alessandro  Stradella, Genoa 1678                                                                  

​Synopsis ...

​It is over three years since the charismatic composer, violinist and singer Alessandro Stradella sought refuge in the palaces and twisted alleys of Genoa, royally welcomed despite the alleged scandals and even crimes that forced him to flee from Rome, Venice and Turin.

By 1681 Stradella’s professional and personal life have begun to unravel again, losing him a prime position at la Teatro Falcone and residence on the city’s street of palaces, la Strada Nuova. Returning from a performance in Modena, Stradella is offered—by the very man he is rumored to have wronged—a respectable if slightly shabby apartment in a house near la via Luccoli and yet another chance to redeem his character and career. He moves in with a flourish met with curiosity and consternation by the caretakers who are also tenants, three women whose reputations are only of concern to themselves.

Donatella, still unmarried in her mid-thirties, is plainly irrelevant. Yet like the city she lives in there are hidden longings in her, propriety the rule not cure for what ails her. She cares more for her bedridden grandmother and cats than overbearing aunt, keeping house and tending to a small terraced garden, painting flowers and waxing poetic in her journal. At first she is in awe of Stradella and certain she will have little to do with him. Slowly his ego, playfulness, need of a copyist and camouflage involve her in an inspired and insidious world, exciting and heartbreaking as she is enlarged by his magnanimity and reduced by his missteps, forging a friendship that challenges how far she will go
​

Alessandro Stradella (1639 - 1682): who was he?

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When informed that "jealousy was the motive to it" Purcell lamented Stradella's fate, and "in regret of his great merit as a musician", said he could forgive him any injury in that kind.
                                          ~ From Purcell studies by Curtis Price

Born in Nepi near Rome of minor nobility, Stradella was cultivated but also a vagabond. His life seemed to be a struggle between the discipline of his work and recklessness of his behavior. Yet, whether acting on a patron's whim or his own impulse, uncertainty and risk were inevitable. It was his nature to embrace them, indulging in possibilities, captivating men and women known and unknown, seducing posterity with his reputation for making messes ... but also masterpieces.

Stradella's output was versatile and copious, including operas, and oratorios, serenatas, madrigals and incidental music. He worked royally and nobly, for the theater and the church, for grand and domestic occasions, celebrating life and love, using allegory and heart and humor, challenging singers and instrumentalists and the inventiveness of himself. He developed the aria and concerto grosso, his work no less significant than Vivaldi's or Corelli's, if anything more passionate and pioneering, his text interpretation and melodist abilities impressing Scarlatti and even Handel who freely borrowed from him.

Unfortunately ...

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​... loving the wrong women and angering the wrong men held grave consequences and caused centuries of neglect for the fervent 17th century Italian maestro. But, as Henry Purcell recognized, the shame was on the perpetrators of Stradella's demise. By the second decade of the 18th century Stradella's compositions were rarely performed, instead his escapades played over and over in largely inaccurate biographies, novels and operas. Fortunately there has been some renewed interest in his music, but it remains obscure and under-performed as he only very slowly emerges from the shadows of his seemingly better behaved contemporaries.​
​​Go to youtube.com to listen to selections of Alessandro Stradella's music.
Buy recordings of  Stradella's music on Amazon.com.​​

​Alessandro Stradella, Two-Part Sinfonia no.9 in G major
Please scroll down to discover more about the performer: Musicologist and Violinist Alberto Sanna!

​Please visit his website for more information on and samples of his work, which as well as Stradella also shine light on Corelli. Dr. Alberto has served as the Director of Music on the BBC 4 Drama How To Flee From Sorrow.
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© Copyright 2018 DM Denton. All rights reserved.