The Instrumentalist is an engaging, enchanting story painted in beautiful pictures. I could practically hear the music coming off the pages. Heartwarming, heartbreaking, engaging, enraging and very human. Would definitely recommend!

The first thing I will say is - COVER GOALS! Oh how beautiful it is. Even more so since I've watched the video about how they constructed it.

This is a story I knew nothing about. Of course, like most classical music fans, I knew of Vivaldi and his talent, but the work of Anna Maria della Pietà had passed me by.

Within the very first paragraph you get a real sense of Italy in the late 1600s. Harriet's done such a great job of creating a sense of space, which means it's easier to get sucked into the story as she puts you right in the middle of it.

I learnt the violin when I was at primary school, about 9-10 years old. I thought I was rather good - my parents thought otherwise. But the reason I gave it up? Because I'm lazy. I would have my daily lesson and then pop it in my teacher's cupboard to pick up before I went home. And without fail, every single day, I'd be halfway home before I'd realise I'd forgotten it, and I would have to walk back and get it. Every. Single. Day. Now, keep in mind I only live about a 10 minute walk from the school, maybe 15 with my child legs. But I was so lazy, that meant enough to give it up. And I regret that constantly. And now I still love listening to classical music and watching orchestras, and so this story really spoke to me. The way Harriet has described Anna's love of music and the violin is just magical.

It is such an easy book to read. It flows along so well that 300+ pages just disappears. It took me am atter of hours to read, so reluctant was I to leave it.

I did a little bit of Googling and found out that Harriet grew up playing the flute and piano alongside her classically trained mother. And this explains the emotions she's managed to evoke about music. Unless you know music, really know music, then its hard to put down into words just what it can do, what it can mean, and it's obvious in each line that music is in her blood.

An observation (not a negative) is that it doesn't have a huge amount of plot. This is all about character and about music and amotions, and I like it all the more for that. There's only so many times you can write about a violin rehearsal or a concert or a dinner before they blend into one. But by exploring the characters and how the music makes them feel, it feels fuller than if it was "just" a plot heavy story. In my opinion, this is about how it makes the reader feel, rather than the literal journey they go on. And I really loved that.

I believe this is Harriet's debut novel, which is very impressive and bodes well for any future releases.

If you're looking for a book about empowerment, strength, ambition, joy, love, friendship, talent, ambition, and the importance of women behind achievements credited to men, then this is the one for you.

“The Instrumentalist” is based on the true story of Anna Maria, a real life violinist and composer living in Venice in the early 1700s. She was abandoned by her mother when she was a baby and grew up with hundreds of other orphan girls at the Ospedale della Pietà. But Anna Maria is special. When she hears a violin being played for the first time, she falls in love and sets out to become the greatest violinist and composer. When the maestro at the Ospedale della Pietà chooses her as his star pupil, she realises she has to do everything to keep this position, please this great man and escape from the bleak future ahead of her. However, the better she gets, the more she has to risk everything.

I really enjoyed this book. I knew nothing of the story, the orchestra of the Ospedale della Pietà and the involvement they had with the music of Vivaldi. Although I’m not shocked that their involvement has been largely written out of history as they were all women and girls! I really liked the character of Anna Maria and the way she saw music as colours. It really made me think about music differently. She can be quite frustrating in her obsession with being the best but at no point did it feel unrealistic.

My one criticism would be that, given we are told the whole story from Anna Maria’s perspective, I didn’t feel there was enough differentiation between the way she thought as she grew up.

But overall this is a really good book which sheds light on a fascinating part of musical history and the people, importantly the women, involved.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

A fine piece of historical fiction that tells the story of Anna Maria della Pièta. I'd heard of the Pièta but not about Anna Maria - not just one of the most accomplished violinists but a Master of Music at the orphanage - a very unusual post for a woman to have in the 1700s.

Harriet Constable has pulled together as much factual information she could about Anna Maria in order to tell a fictional tale of how the orphaned girl came to prominence. She was taught (as many were) by Antonio Vivaldi. The inference that the girls themselves played a significant part in Vivaldi's compositions is not difficult to believe knowing all that we do now about how big a role women played in successful men's success stories.

This is a really interesting and engaging story. I listened to quite a few of the compositions (Vivaldi's) as I read the book. He's not my favourite composer but he was an excellent composer.

I'd definitely recommend this book whether you are musically minded or not. It's a good story, well told.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for the advance review copy.

A ‘creative’ telling, vibrant and infused with colour, the story, centring on the life of musician and composer Anna Maria della Pietà, moves along at the perfect pace. It is rich. It is descriptive. It shines a light on the losses and triumphs of our central character as well as her relationships with those around her.

As an aside. I knew, of course, of Vivaldi. I knew nothing of Anna Maria nor of any of the countless girls and women who helped to shape music ‘created’ and made famous by men. When I next listen to the Four Seasons I will appreciate anew the genius of its composer(s.)

I devoured this book!!
Read it in 24hours and now I feel like I'm missing those people I was reading about.
I discovered so much about Vivaldi and especially Anna Maria della Pietà, who I didn't even know existed.
The writing was excellent, the story was excellent.
I loved it!

I enjoyed the book based on the life of Anna Maria della Pietà. She became a celebrated violinist in Venice thanks to her initial mentoring by Vivaldi. With all fictional stories based on truth, it is difficult to know how much fact Constable included in the book. Anna Maria is portrayed as an ambitious diva. I would have liked to have known more about her later life as she lived in the orphanage all her life having become maestro. Having read the book and the author's notes I would now like to read a factual account of her life.

This is a beautifully written and incisive novel about music, creativity, art, ambition and what people do to become the best.

Anna Maria della Pieta is a young musical protégée, working under the tutelage of the great Antonio Vivaldi at the Ospedale della Pieta - an orphanage for young girls in Venice. Abandoned as a baby by her young and impoverished mother, Anna Maria’s talent is apparent from a young girl age. Not only can she feel the music that she plays on her violin, her synaesthesia means that she can see its colours too. As she rises through the ranks of the Ospedale’s celebrated orchestra, the Figlie, her fame rises as does her desire for greater recognition and power. However, as an orphaned girl in early eighteenth century Venice, her options become squeezed as her mentor’s fear and envy of her talent increases.

This book asks so many poignant questions. Is it fair to educate these brilliant young minds, only to deny them the true credit that they deserve? What price does friendship pay when the chance for greatness arises? What do we sacrifice of ourselves when ambition takes a very deep root?

Based on the true story of Anna Maria della Pieta, this is a moving and utterly engrossing read. Five stars all the way!

Anna Maria della Pieta was sent to an orphanage as a baby by her mother. The orphanage teaches and equips the young girls in music amongst other things and it is apparent from a young age that Anna Maria has a real talent.

Under the tutorage of Vivaldi, Anna Maria's music begins to flourish and has her eyes set on becoming a Maestro.

Harriet Constable takes the reader on a journey through both the rich and poor sides of 18t century Venice through the fictional tale of two real life characters - Antonio Vivaldi and Anna Maria della Pieta.

An enjoyable read for anyone interested in historical fiction and in particular musical history.

Thanks to Bloomsbury and Netgalley for the ARC.

This book was so powerful. I loved reading the journey of Anna, the struggles, i felt them all. I really wanted the very best for her. I loved her ambition throughout, made me want to have some of that ambition myself.

Historical novel about a gifted musician - very good indeed.

Anna Maria della Pieta was a gifted violinist and composer and this book is a fictionalised account of her early life, based on real events. We learn about her enormous talent and how she was treated as an orphan and as a woman in Venetian society of the early 18th century. The book contains various developed characters, all with their own stories. It's a fascinating insight into the morality and functioning of life at that time. It's a very worthwhile read and I recommend it to all types of reader.. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I was absolutely enthralled by The Instrumentalist inspired by true events and is Harriet Constable's debut book set in 18th century Venice. Harriet's writing was so beautiful that I actually felt I was taken back in time to 18th century Venice. It was the century for men to outshine but unfortunately women did not have the same status but Anna Maria wants to break the mould not only for herself but the rest of the girls in the orphanage run by nuns.

Anna Maria della Pietà was only a baby when her Mother a brothel worker through her own naivety. Her Mother attempts to drown herself and Anna in the canal but fortunately for Anna her Mother did not go through with it and gave her up to the Pieta an orphanage via a gap in the wall where many more unfortunate babies were abandoned in order to have a better life than their own Mothers. Hundreds of other brothel workers babies were less fortunate as they too were found dead in the canal of Venice.

Within these walls there resides three hundred girls who have their lives mapped out for them the minute they were placed within the orphanage.
Aged eight years old she is the youngest girl to be chosen to learn how to play the violin along with other girls but Anna Marie received special tuition from her teacher Antonio Vivaldi whom she sees as a father figure but is she wise to put all her trust in him only time will tell.

Anna Maria has an ambition to become Maestro before she comes of age when orphans like herself are destined to be married off to older men, lace, laundry, kitchen, nursing orphaned babies in the nursery for the rest of their lives.

Anna Maria has a gift for music and she sees music in multicolour in everything around her which influences her music and composing. Anna Maria plays before Kings, Queens and Emperess' in palaces. Anna Marie suffers from recurring nightmares in her quest to achieve her ambition.

I love the way Harriet captures Venice as she describes the smells of the spices as merchants delivered their wares from far away places. The smells of jasmine and rose from the palaces and then the poor parts of Venice smelling of alcohol, urine and decay. Lace workers who had to refrain from relieving themselves as they only had one break.

Anna Maria and the rest of the children within the orphanage have been sheltered from the outside world but not from the abuse that went on within the walls of the orphanage.

The Instrumentalist absolutely lives up to the expectations generated by the blurb. Richly described, intriguing story. All the sights, sounds and smells of Venice. I think that the building constraints mean that very little has changed since 1704, so even a quick visit leaves you fully engaged with the location.

Our heroine, Anna Maria, is introduced to the world by her mother, and it isn’t pretty. We jump a few years at a time, with key episodes in Anna Maria’s life and career. Each time we see people we sort of recognise, and the tensions over how this girl genius can ever escape a dreadful fate and gain recognition in this man’s world. Sometimes I felt it was predictable, and at others I found the author had done just enough to keep my cynicism at bay.

Harriet Constable has done a great job with this story, drawn from scant records and brought to life. I think a few of the historical inventions, particularly the scene with Casanova (who had only just been born by then) were unnecessary and gave little to the plot. Maybe a need to over-egg the pudding? Not that Anna Maria and her friends were familiar with puddings.

A really enjoyable story, with life and sorrow and music, which will be loved by many, especially cellists!

This is an incredible, immersive story of Anna Maria del Pieta, an orphan who became a maestro and possibly authored many of Vivaldis works.

Left in the wall of the orphan hospital just weeks old, Anna Maria has to fight for everything and boy is she determined! Her incredible passion and talent for music - so much so that she can see the notes as colours - push Anna on to the top of the music world.

The writing glows from the pages. Passionate, vibrant and sensuous I was transported to Venice and to the company of Anna Maria. In her, the author has created a very real and flawed but relatable character.

Despite the 18th century setting, many of the issues Anna Maria has to push against are still all too recognisable today. The sidelining of her talent because of her sex and the gaslighting by a more powerful man is still a citation faced by women the world over.

I am loving the recent trend in literature of giving voices to real, forgotten females from history and this is another excellent example. Utterly compelling. Bravo!

Huge thanks to Bloomsbury for an advance copy

'The Instrumentalist' is a work of historical fiction based on the early life of an extraordinary real woman, Anna Maria della Pieta. The story is mostly told from Anna Maria's perspective, with the exception of the first chapter which is from that of her mother, a teenage prostitute who must leave her baby at the Pieta - an orphanage run by nuns accepting only female babies. The Pieta is no ordinary orphanage - it offers a good education to its charges, particularly in music, with the best going on to play in the Coro del Figlie, a renowned orchestra. From an early age Anna Maria dreams of fame and of the security membership of the Figlie would give. Her wishes start to come true when she discovers a prodigious talent for the violin and is taken on as a pupil by Antonio Vivaldi, the master of music at the Pieta. As with all realised dreams though, the old adage 'be careful what you wish for' is soon proven to be true.

Anna Maria is an interesting and sympathetic character even though her behaviour is not always very nice. She makes bad choices and is no saint, but she's more relatable for that. Her extreme ambition and drive are not necessarily endearing qualities, but they are necessary ones to achieve what she does, and more forgivable when the circumstances of her life are considered. Whilst the Pieta gives extraordinary opportunities, particularly in the context of the time (17th century), it is a hard, loveless world and even the tiniest of mistakes or simply being too mediocre have potentially terrible consequences. Girls who are not considered good enough, or those who displease the capricious Vivaldi, are simply sold off to husbands or even worse fates.

The setting and inclusion of famous names from music and history definitely add to the interest - Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons' is one of the best known and loved pieces of European classical music, often one of the few that even those who don't enjoy classical music will recognise and like. I had no idea that he wrote it for an all female orchestra - I didn't even know such a thing existed. Who knows how much his female students contributed to its development - certainly to some extent, perhaps to a great extent. The gender inequality of the time meant that the achievements of the women in their own right would never be recognised in the same way, as Anna Maria came to realise. Vivaldi himself does not come off very well at all, appearing vain, insecure and cruel. The author's notes suggest there is a reasonable historical basis for that characterisation. I think having read this book, I shall listen to his works in a different way, and maybe imagine Anna Maria as the silent author behind their greatness.

The book grew on me over time - initially I imagined it would be a workaday novel, perhaps a bit slow. But once it gets going, it is extremely gripping and tells a compelling and fascinating story about ambition, power and fairness that is still relevant today. Anna Maria has to make choices and sacrifices, and she comes to realise she is lucky to even have choices or things to sacrifice. I liked the supporting characters - her friends Paulina, Agata and Chiara - and the female solidarity that eventually develops between the orchestra members after being pushed to consider each other rivals.

I would highly recommend this story to anyone who likes historical fiction, to those with an interest in classical music, in female roles in history, or in the Venetian Republic.

An exquisitely written book about the fictionalised life of Anna Maria della Pietà, the student and muse of Antonio Vivaldi. Anna Maria, who was brought up in an orphanage in Venice in 1704, grew up to become a maestro of violin and this story shows the difficulties she faced in a male-dominated society. I have considerable knowledge of the contemporary world of classical music education, and assuming at least some of what the author portrays is historically accurate, it is indeed depressing to see how little has changed over the centuries.

This is an engrossing story with beautiful descriptions and characterisations that pull in the reader, even when the characters are deeply flawed. Historical fiction isn’t a genre I normally read, but The Instrumentalist is a fabulous book and I look forward to reading more by Harriet Constable.

Thank you to the author, Bloomsbury Publishing and Netgalley for my advance copy.

A wonderful book that is a fictionalised account of an extraordinary life.

I love Venice and have visited many times and have walked past the Ospedale della Pieta while knowing nothing of its amazing history,

I know very little about classical music but even I've heard of Vivaldi and recognise his more famous pieces. That an orphan girl might have contributed to them or even written whole works such as L'Extravaganza is an intriguing idea. I don't discount it completely but surely we'd have some evidence of other works by Anna Maria while she was head of music post-Vivaldi ? Some will say that her work was suppressed by the patriarchy, but given that she was recognised as the premier violinist (amongst other instruments she played) and feted by Princes and Cardinals and on down, I think that it's unlikely that everything would have been lost.

The writing is very stylised but relates beautifully to the music and the use of colours and synesthesia is very clever and illustrative.

Loved it which is why I didn't get to sleep until 2AM this morning !

The story of Anna Maria, an orphan in 18th century Venice. But no ordinary orphan and no ordinary orphanage. This orphanage is the home of a renowned orchestra and Anna Maria is a highly skilled violinist. She is accepted to attend private lessons from the music teacher and her ambitions to become a maestro has a profound effect on her and her relationships with her friends.
She is not a pleasant character, allowing no one or nothing to stand in the way of her ambitions. I did not realise until the end that it is based on a real person and horrid music teacher that stole all her compositions was in reality Vivaldi. I’m not sure how true to reality this book is but it does tell a good story. A worthwhile read.

Thanks to NetGalley.co.uk and the publishers for this ARC in exchange for this honest review.

After reading a lot of SFF this year I wanted a change of pace, and an historical fiction novel about one of Vivaldi's protégés and her rise to become a maestra di violino. Anna Maria della Pietà has fascinated me for a long time, largely because we know so little about her life and her works, so the premise of *The Instrumentalist* attracted me immediately.

Here's the blurb:

>A dazzling historical debut set in eighteenth-century Venice, about the woman written out of the story of one of history's greatest musical masterpieces

> Venice. 1704. In this city of glittering splendour, desperation and destitution are never far away. At the Ospedale della Pietà, abandoned orphan girls are posted every through a tiny gap in the wall every day.

> Eight-year-old Anna Maria is just one of the three hundred girls growing up within the Pietà's walls – but she already knows she is different. Obsessive and gifted, she is on a mission to become Venice’s greatest violinist and composer, and in her remarkable world of colour and sound, it seems like nothing with stop her.

> But the odds are stacked against an orphan girl – so when the maestro selects her as his star pupil, Anna Maria knows she must do everything in power to please this difficult, brilliant man. But as Anna Maria’s star rises, threatening to eclipse that of her mentor, the dream she has so single-mindedly pursued is thrown into peril…

>From the jewelled palaces of Venice to its mud-licked canals, this is a story of one woman’s irrepressible ambition and rise to the top, of loss and triumph, and of who we choose to remember and leave behind on the path to success.

Initially I really enjoyed this. The writing is strong and Venice is painted in vibrant brush strokes that really bring the setting to life. Anna Maria's childhood at the orphanage and her discovery of the violin were compelling and her burgeoning relationship with Vivaldi (who is never actually named in the novel after an Introductory note explaining who her tutor is) gripped me.

Unfortunately my initial love for the book was short-lived. Because this was a review copy I felt more of an obligation to continue reading to the end than I normally would, but had that not been the case I think I would have DNFd at around the halfway mark. There were a few things that irritated me early on that I was happy to ignore, but as the book progressed I found them more and more bothersome. Despite the blurb stating that "the odds are stacked against" Anna Maria, there's never really any sense that she struggles to achieve anything. The story is a fairly linear sequence of events in which Anna Maria wants something, gets it, is abrasive and horrible to the people around her, and is then forgiven because she's brilliant. This formula repeats fairly regularly, and the lack of any real dramatic tension makes it hard to want to keep turning the page.

One of the main challenges in writing historical fiction is balancing the history - the things we know to be true - with the fiction in order to craft a compelling narrative. That's especially difficult with a figure like Anna Maria della Pietà, about whom very little is known. In the author's note Constable acknowledges that she has moved some events around "for dramatic purposes", but I found that the manner in which this was done actually took away from what the book was trying to acheive.

There are a couple of instances in particular where I find the shuffling around of events and characters to stray away from artistic license and into the realm of historical revisionism. The first is in the character of Chiara. In real life Chiara della Pietà was a student of Anna Maria's born nearly 20 years after the maestra and taught by her. In the novel she becomes a peer and a rival, someone who Anna Maria contends with for a place in the orchestra and who later betrays Anna Maria's trust to Vivaldi. Given that the novel is explicitly concerned with the way women are erased from history, this felt like a betrayal of an historical figure who should be remembered alongside Anna Maria as a virtuoso in her own right, rather than rewritten as a villain.

This criticism also extends to the treatment of Vivaldi in the novel and, in particular, the way in which Anna Maria's contributions to his music are portrayed. It's almost certainly a fact that the women of the Ospedale della Pietà worked closely with Vivaldi and helped write his music, often without any credit, but Constable takes this a step further, giving full credit to Anna Maria for both *La stravaganze* and the *Four Seasons*. *La stravaganza* was written in 1712, when Anna Maria was around 16 years old. The provenance of Vivaldi's Four Seasons is not entirely clear but it's likely that they were composed during a period when Vivaldi was the court chapel master in Mantua in around 1718-1720, not when he was in Venice in roughly 1711 (which is when this section of the novel takes place).

It's this painting of Anna Maria as the driving force behind all of Vivaldi's success and fame that feels a little disingenuous. The novel is very much exploring the fact that women's lives and accomplishments are very often minimised, and Anna Maria della Pietà is a great example of this given that her works are not readily accessible in the present day. It's not outside the realms of possibility that she did co-write with Vivaldi and it's a matter of fact that Vivaldi wrote many of his works for the women of the Pietà to perform, and I suspect license has been taken to extend that to *La Stravaganze* and the *Four Seasons* purely because they're the most well-known of Vivaldi's works for most people, but personally I felt like the desire to insert Anna Maria into all of Vivaldi's work lessened the point. By the time the Four Seasons were published Anna Maria had already been dubbed "Maestra" (at the age of 24, rather than 17 as she is in the novel). For the narrative to want to so directly link her to Vivaldi's greatest work at the expense of highlighting own accomplishments seems to actually be diminishing her rather than achieving the author's aim.

This desire to paint Vivaldi out of his own life comes to a head in the final third of the book, which is less about celebrating the brilliance of Anna Maria and the other women of the orphanage that it is about demonising and tearing down the character of Vivaldi. He's painted as almost abusive, stealing Anna Maria's life's work and burning her compositions in front of a class of younger students. Perhaps the attempt here is to invert the idea of women being written out of history, to make us feel uncomfortable about the treatment of Vivaldi here in the hope that it will cause us to reflect on the way women are treated in historical records, but if that's the case I don't think it succeeds particularly well. Rather than providing an opportunity for reflection it instead feels mean-spirited, and it lends a sour note to what should be a celebration of the brilliance of Anna Maria.

The author's note opens with the statement that *The Instrumentalist* is "a work of fiction inspired by true events from the life of Anna Maria della Pietà". I think that I would have enjoyed this more had it not been marketed as historical fiction. If the real names had been stripped out and this was purely a work of fantasy then the muddling up of historical details and the anachronistic characterisation, with every character reading like they've stepped straight out of the 21st century, wouldn't be issues. There would still have been the problem of Anna Maria always seeming to get what she wants without issue, but I think I would have been more forgiving of that had I not expected that I was reading about the life of a real person who succeeded against very real odds.

With all this criticism it probably seems like I hated this book, which isn't the case. I liked it a lot more at the beginning than I did at the end, and the thought definitely crossed my mind about halfway through that perhaps I didn't want to finish it, but on reflection I enjoyed it more than I didn't. I wouldn't be in a rush to re-read it, and if the author continues to write in historical genres then I'm not sure I would continue to read her work since I like my historical fiction to be more grounded in the actual history, but if her next book were instead a work of pure fiction I would definitely pick it up.

DNF at 30%. I am sorry but Anna Maria is incongruous with the historical period and place. Under no circumstances, and orphan at that time and place would act and react as Anne Maria is doing in The Instrumentalist. She very much seems a 21st century girl transmuted to 18th century Venice. Nah....

I would love to read something similar, written by someone who wants to is able to do it justice rather than trying so hard to write a feminist story, no matter when and where it is set!