down with them from Florence, Tonio lost his temper, telling Guido flat out that he was boorish, loutish, a peasant done up in a frock coat, a dancing bear.
Of all the little ones who often aroused his affection, or even his pity, it was Paolo whom Tonio could never quite forget. But that had nothing to do with the injustice of it. Paolo had pushed himself under Guido as far as he could. He was impish by nature, full of laughter and smiles, and it was that more than anything he’d actually done which had earned him the whipping and Tonio was now white with rage.
But Guido merely laughed.
He introduced Tonio to the final culmination of all earlier lessons, the singing of passages:
This was the taking of a line of music and breaking it up into many smaller notes, while at the same time keeping intact the verbal sense of the passage and its underlying thematic purity. Guido used the word Sanctus as an example. For it the composer might write two notes, the second higher than the first. But Tonio must be able to divide the first sound, Sane, into seven or eight notes of varying length, moving up and down but eventually ascending smoothly to the second note or sound Tus, which must then have its seven or eight notes, but terminating with a pleasing finality on that same second note again.
Practicing these ornaments and passages as Guido had written them out would be the beginning. But then Tonio must learn to pick up the bare bones of any composition and create his own embellishments tastefully and with perfect timing. He must know when to swell a note, how long to hold it, whether to break a passage into notes of unequal time or those of equal time, and how far he might go into ascending and descending intricacies. And he must at all times articulate the words of a cantata or aria so that in spite of all this exquisite ornamentation, the meaning of the words was clear to everyone.
This was, fundamentally, all that Guido had to teach Tonio. The rest was variation, refinement.
And normally it took five years for a pupil to master it, the pupil moving on much more slowly from Accentus to Esclamazio to ornaments. But Guido had fed it rapidly to Tonio for obvious reasons: that Tonio not become bored, and because Tonio was proving that he could absorb it.
He could work on all aspects of his vocal technique at once; and so Guido began to write for him more and more complicated vocalises. He had of course many old books by teachers of the last century as well as the early 1700s. But like most teachers, he wrote his own, knowing what Tonio most needed.
And Tonio, when he saw that this was the basis of his study and that what lay ahead was the perfecting of his voice through these exercises until it was as strong, as consistent, and as beautiful as a series of perfectly cast bells struck over and over again with exactly the same force, burst into tears with his arms folded under his head at the harpsichord.
He was now so tired in brain and muscle that he felt he had never before understood either sleep or exhaustion. And he did not care if Guido Maffeo was glaring at him.
He hated Guido! As much as Guido hated him, and so be it. And all this he had vowed to do for himself, for his own pleasure! He felt terrified suddenly. If he let go of this, what was left?
He had a swimming feeling as if he were losing his balance, and he was aware suddenly of a substratum of dreams which in the mornings had always been forgotten. A little door threatened to swing open on nightmare and on nothing, and he cried on bitterly, wishing that Guido Maffeo would leave him. Leave him in disgust, go on. Get out of here!
That was what the Maestro would say in a moment. “Get out of here.”
“My voice is coarse,” he said finally. “It’s uneven, it swells and cracks of its own accord in my throat. What I’ve learned so far is simply this: to hear how bad it is!”
Guido was glowering at him. Then his face went curiously blank.
“May I go to bed?” Tonio whispered.
“Not just yet,” Guido said. “Go up to your room and get dressed. I’m taking you out with me to the opera.”
“What?” Tonio raised his head.