The Instrumentalist

“Anna Maria della Pietà will be the youngest member of the figlie di coro, the orphanage’s world-famous orchestra, and a maestro by eighteen. The world will know her. They will know her as the greatest musician who ever lived.”

Anna Maria is a strong-willed, determined character. Even as a young child, she is goal-oriented and feels herself destined for a successful career in music. She also understands that achieving her goals will require hard work and dedication, and she is willing to devote long hours to honing her craft. Unlike many girls her age and even her close friends, she is single-minded and focused, leading to her conflicts with Ambition and Drive Versus Friendship and Loyalty.

“Anna Maria understood tempo, pitch, and tune before she could speak. Music is her blood and bones and everything besides. But it has never been like this. It’s like she has cracked open another layer, found something deeper inside herself.”

This moment marks the beginning of Anna Maria’s love affair with the violin. Although already a dedicated musician, Anna Maria feels a deep connection to the violin. Her ambition to become a great violinist and Vivaldi’s mentorship will shape both the rest of her childhood and her adulthood. She will be defined almost entirely by her ambition and her musical skill.

“I am not merely a violinist, eight. I am a composer. Instrumentalists are forgotten.”

Here, Vivaldi plants one of the seeds that will help shape Anna Maria’s ambition. She is characterized in large part by her intense drive and desire to succeed, and she realizes because of Vivaldi that composing is a better path to success than merely performing. Her ability to write will make her more valuable to Vivaldi as a student, but also leads to his exploitation of her, reflecting The Complexity of Mentor-Protégé Dynamics.

“Maestros cannot worry about insignificances like other people’s feelings.”

Vivaldi is known for his intractable personality and arrogance. Although many of his peers and students complain about his behavior, Anna Maria finds it relatable. In this passage, Vivaldi’s declaration that accomplished people cannot care about “other people’s feelings” speaks to ambition and drive versus friendship and loyalty: While Anna Maria will accept his worldview for now, she will learn to question it later in the novel.

“Agata would have been frightened to see that she was at the edge. She would have wanted Anna Maria to hold her hand, to say that she must wait just a little bit longer. She would have liked to have looked into the faces of her sisters and know that she was loved.”

Here, an anguished Anna Maria realizes that because of her ambition and her dedication to music, she missed her best friend’s dying breath. While Anna Maria previously told herself that practicing was more important than visiting Agata, here she realizes the significance of dying and how her neglect must have made Agata feel, foreshadowing how Anna Maria will eventually reject ruthlessly self-centered ambition.

“Girls are married off sometimes, she knows this now. But it’s the ones without talent, without skill, those who have no future ahead.”

The girls at the Pietà do not have the luxury of self-determination. Although Anna Maria’s ambition is rooted in her devotion to music and her desire to be a great violinist, she also knows that the only way she will be able to shape the course of her own life is to win a spot in the figlie di coro. For Anna Maria, the figlie di coro represents meaning, possibility, and passion. Marriage would only transfer the nuns’ power over her to her husband.

“‘Tartini was Corelli’s student,’ he explains. The Devil’s Trill took the essence of Corelli’s idea and did something new with it. He learned the language, and then added fresh ingredients. Not necessarily better, but different.”

Here, Vivaldi appears to be teaching Anna Maria a lesson about the teacher-student relationship, and yet he is also grooming her to become his uncredited composing assistant. He shows her that it is possible to learn from one’s teacher and create something new in hopes that she will take his lesson to heart and produce music that he can use to supplement his own pieces. His manipulation speaks to the complexity of mentor-protégé dynamics.

“She wonders for a moment what it would have been like to have a father. Would he have squeezed her shoulder so? Would he have helped her to play?”

Vivaldi and Anna Maria have a complex, shifting relationship throughout the years. Although he can be arrogant and his opinions are strong, he is also capable of softness and his support for Anna Maria is steadfast. Here, she notices his genuine affection for her as a person and likens his behavior to that of a father. Although she will eventually come to see him as exploitive, during the early years of her adolescence she feels warmly toward him.

“She draws the bow, feels the strings vibrate through her as the violin awakens, reveals its voice in song. The sound is liquid, gleaming, sublime. The red she had expected to see flows out in front of her. But then it does something different. It trembles and fragments before her eyes, no longer simply one color but a thousand shades of gold and auburn and maroon, a soul come to life.”

Anna Maria’s synesthesia is one of the novel’s most important motifs. Here, she realizes how important her violin is because it makes colors even more vibrant and complex than before, making her music all the more alive. The intensity of the colors reflects Anna Maria’s passion and the suitability of her instrument.

“She reaches the cadenza. She could not stop if she wanted to. Her invented notes pulsate, flowing from her body into shades of blue, green, and gold. Her teacher stands up straight, looking at her, takes a step closer, then another. He knows that this is her work, that this belongs to her.”

Vivaldi nurtures Anna Maria’s genius only in part because he wants to help her career. He also realizes, early on, that she is a gifted composer. In this passage, Vivaldi’s body language—suddenly straightening, approaching her—reveals that he recognizes the significance of what she is doing without him saying a word. His intuitive understanding of her reflects the complexity of mentor-protégé dynamics, as he will soon seek to exploit her compositional gifts as well.

“Sometimes an idea jumps from him to her without even having to exchange words. She drinks in his notes, he drinks in her ideas. They dive down and drown in them, not even realizing the time.”

Vivaldi and Anna Maria’s mentor-protegee relationship is complex. The two share a deep bond over their passion for music and Vivaldi does much to nurture Anna Maria’s talent. The language in this passage suggests equality, creating parallels between how “she drinks” and “he drinks” and how they both “dive down and drown” in their conversations, suggesting a free and easy exchange between peers. Such seeming equality is ultimately illusory, although Anna Maria does not yet recognize it in moments like these.

“There is no room for pride, you understand? Even members of the figlie get the whip if they misbehave.”

This line, spoken to Anna Maria by Sister Madalena, represents the repressive nature of life at the Pietà, even for the stars of its world-famous orchestra. The girls are kept to a strict schedule of mass, chores, and practice. They have very little agency and cannot set the courses of their own lives. Sister Madalena’s strong language, invoking the “whip,” remind Anna Maria that even her talents do not exempt her.

“She thinks of what her teacher told her, that she cannot trust the others, not with a talent such as hers.”

Although she has a friendship of sorts with Paulina and Chiara when all three are in the figlie di coro, Anna Maria remains mindful not to become too close to the other girls, invoking ambition and drive versus friendship and loyalty. Success, for Anna Maria, thus becomes complex: She must give up love and affection in order to maintain her status as a prodigy.

“Do away with it? Like the world wanted to do away with us? I won’t do such a thing.”

Here, Paulina refuses to follow Anna Maria’s advice to terminate her pregnancy. Paulina, although diminutive in stature and often described by Anna Maria as lacking strength, is actually a strong-willed and resolute character. Since she and all of the girls of the Pietà were born to mothers in positions like hers, she feels that continuing her pregnancy is what she wishes to do.

“Female violinist,” Anna Maria reads that last line several times, then thuds down on her bed. So strange, she thinks, that Rousseau singled out her sex. If she is the most talented, let her be the most talented.”

Here, Anna Maria reflects how even though the Pietà’s orchestra is ranked among the best in the world, its musicians are still considered secondary to the male “greats” of the era. Her discomfort in how Rousseau specifies her gender as if that mattered one way or another to the respect she deserves reflects both the sexism of the era and The Erasure of Women’s Creative Labor—even when praised, the work of female artists is still often qualified as lesser-than.

“‘Anna,’ He says brightly as she is leaving the room at the end of class. The frenzy of the crowd has dissipated at last. She turns back, moves towards him. ‘I’ve missed you.’”

Vivaldi, although he does take great care to nurture Anna Maria’s talent, remains self-involved and arrogant. He never bothers to call her by her full name and instead refers to her as “Anna,” a mistake she corrects on numerous occasions. This lack of consideration reveals his broader egotism and demonstrates that for him, their relationship is much more about what she can do for his career than what he can do for hers, reflecting the complexity of mentor-protégé dynamics.

“‘Go then,’ Paulina screams as the pulse comes again. Tears stream down her blotchy face. ‘Just fucking go.’”

In a moment that echoes Anna Maria’s refusal to go to see the sick Agata, Anna Maria will not help Paulina to deliver her baby. When confronted with the choice of ambition and drive versus friendship and loyalty, Anna Maria always chooses ambition. This passage also reflects the novel’s use of casual, anachronistic language in an attempt to create more immediacy in its historical setting.

“You are, after all, a girl, a woman. What did you think? That you were going to take a place in history as one of the greatest composers of all time? To have your work published in your own right?”

Vivaldi takes advantage of Anna Maria not only because he can see her genius, but also because he knows that the gender politics of the day preclude her inclusion in the pantheon of great composers of which he is a star member. He understands that her status as a woman makes her easier to exploit: Even if her composing skill became common knowledge, her works would not be performed, thereby reflecting the erasure of women’s creative labor.

“She was born of a monster. And of a monster comes a monster, that is why Anna Maria is so cruel.”

Vivaldi’s influence over Anna Maria is so great that she initially accepts his cruel mischaracterization of her. In believing her mother was a “monster” who wanted her dead, Anna Maria assumes that she is also monstrous and that her ambition is proof of that. This represents a significant turning-point for Anna Maria, as she now faces a crossroads regarding her relationship with Vivaldi and who she really wants to be.

“Your fame means nothing. You are a girl!”

Female friendships, as fraught as they are, play an important role in this narrative. Here, Elizabetta helps Anna Maria to understand that they live in a patriarchal world in which women’s work is never recognized, highlighting the erasure of women’s creative labor. Although Elizabetta is harsh in the way that she speaks and the lesson is difficult, she does speak from a place of compassion. Unlike Vivaldi, her goal is not to shame Anna Maria, but to help her.

“‘Us girls thought she was funny,’ Gertrude said. ‘But there was some hope in all of those reds and greens and blues.’”

Anna Maria learns at the end of the novel that she shares her gift of synesthesia with her mother. To her, this represents her mother’s enduring love and her ability to shape her daughter’s life, even though the two spent only a brief, few weeks together. Synesthesia becomes a point of connection between Anna Maria and her mother and helps her to feel less alone.

“Music has saved you from so much.”

When Anna Maria runs from the Pietà, she feels unloved and incapable of loving. She cannot see the wealth of opportunities she was provided because she is reeling from Vivaldi’s cruelty. Elizabetta helps her to realize that music has truly been a gift and that her musical ability, combined with the chance to become a professional musician, has actually been powerful forces for good in her life.

“Her first memories begin around three. Agata and Paulina are in all of them.”

It is not until the end of the novel that Anna Maria fully realizes the importance of friendship. In wrestling with ambition and drive versus friendship and loyalty, she has often failed to see the role that her friends played in her young life. In recognizing here that Agata and Paulina have always been a fundamental part of her experiences, she begins to change her values and worldview.