Piano Rialzato, Venice, 16th September 2002
The soundscape is one of the best and most distinctive things about Venice. At home we hear aeroplanes, ambulance sirens and the rumble of traffic. Here there is a sound track playing a continual, varied symphony of canal and street life.
To the right of the Piano, a grizzled artist paints surreal landscapes to arias from Mozart operas that float through his open window. The apartment overlooks the Rio di San Barnaba: service boats dawdle by and gondolas glide along with the gentle lapping of water on wood and the low murmur of voices. The bells of Santa Maria dei Carmini play the Ave Maria; someone has transcribed it into the visitors’ book – five bars in ¾ time – Jan Morris says it’s from the ‘Lourdes Hymn’. The hours are tolled through the day and night. The six o’clock chime in the evening is followed by a clamoring call to prayers that fades away into a succession of increasingly distant, disjointed notes.
Boats work up and down the Grand Canal each with its own voice: the buzz of small private boats; the deep growl of the refuse barges; the stop-start grinding of the vaporetti; the rich purr of the sleek mahogany water taxis: and the steady businesslike throb of the pent up power of the fire and police boats waiting to surge forward in pursuit of some emergency. Occasionally the chords of a serenading accordionist announces a gondola carrying extravagant tourists along a side canal.
Footsteps tap along the quays and lanes and trolley wheels rattle over joins between the stones. They mix with the flowing sounds of voices that echo between the shuttered facades of quiet buildings. The joy of children playing rises up from schools hidden behind high walls. People call greetings from doorways; the cutlery sounds of eating escape through beaded curtains; friends relax on seats and share gossip and confidences amid sighs and laughter.