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Reviewed by ALESSANDRO CORTELLO.

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Unlike many novels with musical themes, Orfeo’s Last Act by Michelene Wandor is a book where music is not used as mere bait to attract superficial readers, nor treated as an interchangeable backdrop filled with inaccuracies that would make any professional cringe. The author herself is an expert musician and researcher, and her work on the sacred and secular compositions of Mantuan composer Salamone Rossi has been recorded on CD. Salamone is the central figure of this novel, whose uniqueness lies in its parallel development of two stories: one, featured on the odd-numbered pages, set in Mantua between the late 16th and early 17th centuries; the other, on the even-numbered pages, in early 2000s East Anglia.

The first part of the novel leads us on a journey of discovery through Salamone’s musical education, culminating in his trip to Florence for the celebrations of the wedding of Ferdinando de’ Medici and Christina of Lorraine. Here, new names appear on the pages: those of composers from the generation before Salamone — true authorities in the world of music such as Cristofano Malvezzi, Luca Marenzio, and Giulio Caccini — and that of the young Jacopo Peri. Naturally, Claudio Monteverdi and Alessandro Striggio, composer and librettist of Orfeo, referenced in the novel’s title, also make appearances in the following chapters as Wandor recounts the later years of Salamone’s life.

On the even-numbered pages, the story of Emilia Constantine unfolds, a professor at Lavenham University, who, in search of a topic for her next research project, finds herself attending an Early Music workshop for amateur musicians. Together with passionate amateurs and course professors, a new musical world opens before Emilia’s eyes — and under her fingers — during her stay at Catchpole Manor.

The narration of countless musical performances is a constant throughout the novel, whether in Mantua, Florence, Catchpole Hall, or London. Here, Michelene Wandor consistently demonstrates her expertise, always coming across as effective in translating into words the feelings evoked by making music. In doing so, the author draws on her vast experience as both a musician and a writer. Wandor holds a master’s degree from Trinity College of Music, London, and has given numerous concerts with the early music group Siena. Moreover, although this is her first novel, her first collection of essays was published in 1972, followed by several collections of poetry and short stories, essays on historical-political subjects, and dramatizations of numerous novels for BBC Radio 3.

The immersion into 17th-century music tightly binds the two parts of the novel, with the same music whose creation we witness in the first part being revived in the present by the characters in the second. The connection between the two protagonists grows even stronger when Emilia finds an ancient musical manuscript in a room at Catchpole Manor, which becomes the driving force of the second story’s development.

Through the fate of this manuscript, the author plays with history, imagining what it would be like to unravel its mysteries by gaining access to sources lost forever. She reflects on the reliability of sources, on truth and falsehood, and on the possibility of discerning them from such a distant past. The past is like an extremely fragile manuscript: some parts are missing and will never be read; the rest demands our loyalty and care. What has been demands of us a great responsibility: will we remain faithful to it?

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Italian tenor ALESSANDRO CORTELLO is based in Cambridgeshire and performs regularly in duo with pianist Ralph Woodward. He started his vocal training with Alfredo Mariotti and later studied with Catherine Dubosc, Claude Thiolas and Luciana D’Intino. He graduated in Singing and Piano and studied composition. Alessandro has performed a broad repertoire of opera, chamber- and sacred music in eight European countries and Russia, singing alongside artists such as Placido Domingo, Ruggero Raimondi, and Zubin Mehta. He recorded for RAI, Tactus and Glossa.