Singer for a Wedding in Venice: the City of Vivaldi and Grandfather's Forcola

Venice is one of the cities that shaped the history of sacred music. Yet Anna, Venetian for generations, when she had to choose a singer for a wedding in Venice was about to settle for a violinist with recorded backing tracks. This is the story of how a craftsman grandfather, a walnut forcola, and a tourist's question reminded her who she was.

Singer for a Wedding in Venice: When Boats Cost More Than Music

Federico had opened a spreadsheet and stared at it like an enemy. Thirty-two, from Padua, an engineer, he had always thought getting married was simple. Then he discovered Venice.

"Water taxi for the newlyweds," he read aloud. "Boats for the guests, round trip. Porters for the luggage. Flower transport by boat. Cake transport by boat." He turned to Anna. "In Padua the cake arrives by van, you know?"

Anna laughed. Thirty years old, tour guide, born and raised in the Castello district. For her, getting married anywhere else was unthinkable. But she too was beginning to feel the weight of the bills.

"We need to cut something," Federico said.

"The music in church," Anna suggested, almost without thinking. "I have a friend who knows a violinist. He plays with recorded backing tracks. It costs little and looks good."

Federico wrote in the spreadsheet: violinist with backing tracks. He colored the cell green.

Outside the window, a gondola passed slowly down the canal, with a couple of tourists taking a selfie.

Vivaldi Told to Tourists

On Thursdays Anna had a group of twelve English and American tourists. The tour was always the same: San Marco, Rialto, the hidden squares, and finally the Riva degli Schiavoni, in front of the Pietà church.

There she always told the story of Vivaldi. The red-haired priest, born in Venice, who taught music to orphan girls at the Pietà Hospital. She told how people came from all over Europe to hear them sing in church, hidden behind the grilles. She told of Monteverdi, choirmaster at San Marco. Of a city where sacred music was a serious thing, studied, cared for like golden mosaics.

"For Venetians," she always said, "music in church was not background. It was the highest form of prayer."

That day, at the end of the tour, an American woman in a straw hat approached her.

"You're Venetian, aren't you? They told me you're getting married soon."

"Yes, in May."

The woman smiled. "How wonderful. And at your wedding, what will they sing? Vivaldi?"

Anna opened her mouth. And closed it. She thought of the violinist with recorded backing tracks. Of the cell colored green.

"I don't know yet," she answered.

Walking home along the waterfront, she couldn't stop thinking about it. I tell strangers every day how much Venice loved sacred music. And for my wedding, I choose recorded backing tracks.

Sacred Music in the Bible

On Sunday Anna went to visit her grandfather Bepi. Eighty-four years old, he had been a remèr his whole life: he built the oars and forcolas of gondolas, those walnut wood rowlocks with curved shapes, almost sculptures, on which the gondolier rests the oar.

He hadn't worked in years, but the workshop was still there, on the ground floor. It smelled of wood and varnish. On the workbench, covered by a cloth, was a forcola almost finished. The last of his life, he said.

Anna told him everything: the costs, the violinist, the American tourist.

Psalm 47 in Grandfather's Workshop

Grandfather said nothing. He got up, went to a shelf full of tools and took a very old Bible, with a cover covered in wood shavings and glue stains. He opened it to a page marked with a piece of sandpaper.

"My father read this to me on the first day I entered the workshop. I was twelve years old." He read, slowly: "God is king of all the earth, sing praises with skill. Psalm 47."

He closed the book. "My father used to say: the Lord wants things made with skill. Even a forcola. Because the gondola carries people, and people belong to God."

Malachi and the Wood That Must Sing

Then he removed the cloth from the forcola. It was almost perfect: soft curves, shiny wood, grain patterns that looked like water.

"Do you know how long it took me? Three months. I could have done it in a week. But a poorly made forcola makes the gondola turn crooked. And the gondolier has to work twice as hard." He caressed the wood. "The wood must sing when you work it well. You feel it under your fingers."

He opened the Bible again, further on, almost at the end of the Old Testament. "The prophet Malachi. The Lord says to the people: you bring me lame and sick animals, the ones you don't want. Scraps." He looked at his granddaughter. "You, on the day you consecrate your love, do you bring God scraps?"

Anna felt her eyes fill with tears.

"The wood must sing when you work it well. And so must praise."

Tenor for a Wedding in Venice: Anna's Choice

That evening Anna spoke with Federico. He listened to everything, the tourist, the grandfather, the forcola. Then he opened the spreadsheet.

"We'll carry the cake ourselves on foot," he said. "We'll get the flowers at the Rialto market that morning, my brother will transport them. And we'll remove the water taxi for the newlyweds. We'll go to church on foot, like Venetians of old."

Anna hugged him. "Are you sure? You're from Padua, you'll get lost walking in Venice."

"You'll guide me. It's your job."

With what they had saved, they began to look for a tenor for a wedding in Venice. Anna wanted a voice that would honor the city: trained, solemn, capable of filling a baroque church without getting lost in the echo. They listened to live recordings, compared voices.

When they found the right tenor, Anna wrote to him about her grandfather and the forcola. The maestro responded warmly. And proposed something more: a flash mob with friends and relatives, prepared by him, with an arrangement woven from their voices.

Anna immediately thought of her grandfather's old friends.

Flash Mob Among Gondoliers and Guides

There were seven of them. Former gondoliers, former remèrs, an old squerarolo who built gondolas. They met every afternoon in a bacaro in Castello, to drink a glass of wine and tell each other stories. The youngest was seventy-eight.

When Anna asked them to sing at the wedding, old Toni laughed. "Us? We sang for tourists, dear. Gondola songs. Not in church."

"Exactly," Anna replied. "This time you sing for God. And for grandfather."

Five of Anna's colleagues also joined in, tour guides like her. And Federico, who had a baritone voice that no one suspected.

Rehearsals took place in grandfather Bepi's workshop, which of course he wasn't supposed to know about. On Tuesdays and Thursdays he went to play cards, and the group would slip into the workshop with spare keys. They sang among the wood shavings and oars hanging on the wall.

The maestro wrote an arrangement suitable for elderly and young voices together. At first the old gondoliers sang it all like a barcarole. The maestro laughed. "Softer, gentlemen. You're not rowing against the current."

One evening, the hoarse voices of the old men and the clear voices of the guides came together. The sound filled the workshop, bounced off the wood, seemed to enter the hanging forcolas. Toni stopped singing for a moment and said, softly: "The wood is singing."

Ave Maria in a Venetian Church

On the wedding day Venice was luminous, with the water of the canals reflecting the May sky. Anna and Federico went to church on foot, crossing the bridges of Castello, followed by relatives and friends. Tourists stopped to photograph them and some applauded.

The church was baroque, full of marble and dark paintings. Grandfather Bepi sat in the front row, in his Sunday suit with his cane between his knees.

At the entrance, the tenor's voice filled the nave. Anna, on her father's arm, felt a shiver down her spine. It was the voice Venice deserved.

After communion, Anna brought a bouquet of flowers to the altar of the Madonna. And the tenor began the Ave Maria.

The voice rose among the marbles, bounced off the vaults, came back warmer. It seemed the church itself was singing. Grandfather closed his eyes. Anna, before the Madonna, thought of the girls of the Pietà behind the grilles, three hundred years before. They sang like this too. With skill.

After the blessing, the newlyweds approached the table to sign. Anna picked up the pen.

A hoarse voice rose from the fourth pew. It was Toni. Then the other old gondoliers, one after another, standing, with trembling hands. Then Anna's colleagues. And finally, beside the altar, Federico, with his baritone voice.

Grandfather Bepi opened his eyes. He watched his lifelong friends singing. He leaned on his cane and stood up. And he sang too, with the thin voice of an eighty-four-year-old man, words he had learned who knows when.

Anna put down the pen. She couldn't write anymore. She wept and smiled, with her hand on her heart.

"In the city of sacred music, the most beautiful praise was sung by old gondoliers."

The Walnut Forcola

A week later, when Anna and Federico returned from their honeymoon, they found a package in front of their door. It was wrapped in a wool cloth, tied with twine.

Inside was the forcola. Grandfather's last one, finally finished, shiny and perfect. On the base, carved with a chisel, were two lines: With skill, for Anna and Federico. The wood has sung. Grandfather Bepi.

They hung it on the living room wall, above the sofa, where the afternoon light made it shine like gold.

A few months later, Anna brought a new group of tourists in front of the Pietà church. She told them about Vivaldi, the girls behind the grilles, the sacred music of Venice. Then she added something she never said before.

"And I'll tell you a secret: this tradition hasn't ended. At my wedding, old gondoliers continued it."

Because choosing a singer for a wedding in Venice doesn't just mean finding a beautiful voice. It means gathering a heritage of centuries and offering it to God, on the most important day, with the same care with which an old remèr carves his last forcola.

Where to find wedding musicians near Venice

If you are looking for professional wedding musicians near Venice, Maestro Ilarion, tenor and pianist, sings in person in Venice, in the churches of the historic centre. In church, whether it is your Venetian church, a single musician brings voice and organ to the whole celebration, and the pieces are agreed with the parish priest.

Live wedding music does not stop at the church: voice and piano can also accompany the aperitif, dinner and first dance, at the reception venue. To choose calmly, read the guide Live wedding music: how to find professional musicians.

Surprise flash mob in Venice

Friends and family can prepare a surprise choir for the couple: Maestro Ilarion creates the sung flash mob in Venice, writes the parts, leads rehearsals remotely too and arranges things with the parish priest. He also organises flash mobs for marriage proposals, anniversaries, birthdays, companies and events: read the guide Sung flash mob organiser.