His mother was a noblewoman descended from one of the oldest families in
Piran, whereas his father was from Florence but moved to Piran
around 1685 and was a successful trader who later worked as a recording
clerk in the salt trade.
Giuseppe's parents earnestly wanted their
son to enter the Franciscan Order but they did not get their wish. The
historians of the Minorite Cloister in
Piran (Trani, Granich, Frasson
and others) claim that Giuseppe's parents rented a room for him at that
cloister for two years after 1700 A.D. and that he got the basics of his
musical education there. However, instead of choosing the monastic life,
Tartini went in 1709 to the University of Padua to matriculate the
following year in
jurisprudence, and having also studied theology, philosophy and
literature. At the university, his interests gravitated towards music
as well as fencing, and he took violin lessons from Giulio di Terni — who
years later took some lessons from him.
Also in 1710,
when Tartini was 18, he eloped with Elizabeth
Premazone, a fellow student and the niece of cardinal Giorgio Cornaro,
bishop of Padua. The couple kept their marriage a secret for three years
but once discovered in 1713, the bishop ordered Tartini's arrest for abduction.
He was forced to flee Padua, leaving his wife behind to be sent to a
convent.
Tartini probably travelled to Rome, then
was offered asylum at the Monastery of Assisi where Padre Boeme guided
him through his musical education. He was a student there of the famous Czech
musician Bohuslav Ceznohorsky. He also studied the art of fencing in which he
later became a master. He went on to develop interests in other
Renaissance pursuits as well, including mathematics and astronomy.
Two years later, in 1715, Tartini was
found by some pilgrims from Padua, and they told him his wife had been
pardoned by the cardinal. With the charge against him also dropped, he
emerged from his seclusion to return to his wife and perfect his violin
playing with Gasparo Visconti in Cremona.
There is a legend that when
Giuseppe Tartini in 1712 (or 1716?) heard play the famed violinist
Francesco Maria Veracini (1690-1768), who headed the
Venetian Academy of Music that was founded by the King of Poland, he was so impressed by
his bowing technique, and so dissatisfied with his own skill, that he fled
the next day to
Ancona and locked himself away in a room to practice. Another
version of that event is that he was invited to enter a contest
with Veracini at the Palace Pisani-Mocegino in Venice in
1716,
but finding himself unready he went to Ancona for further study. Withdrawing
there for several years of solitary study, he emerged with a longer bow,
thicker strings, and a new control of cantabile playing. The fundamental
principles of the bow and of bowing were, in any case, an important
subject of his studies.
While in Ancona, he wrote his noted bowing study, L’Arte del Arco,
was published in Naples during his lifetime, and his long letter on
techniques of playing to Signora Maddelena Lombardini, who was
considered an excellent violinist, is well known. About one-hundred and
sixty years later, in 1877, Phipson wrote that the principles Tartini
discovered and elucidated, the acoustic phenomenon of resultant tones,
which he dubbed "terzo sono", served as the basis of every violin school
in the world. By about 1720 he had returned to Venice.
Returning
to Padua, on 16 April 1721 he was appointed "primo violino e capo di
concerto" (first violinist and conductor of the orchestra) at the Church
of St. Anthony, a position that allowed him the freedom to accept
outside engagements. He held that position until 1765 and interrupted only for a
short period which he was employed in Prague.
Tartini refused many flattering
invitations to visit other countries but accepted Count Kinsky's
invitation to attend the coronation of Charles VI in 1723. There, he was offered
his first major appointment as conductor of Count Kinsky's private orchestra where he
remained until 1726. He then returned again to Padua.
In 1726 (or 1728?) Tartini founded a violin school in
Padua which he named "Scuola delle Nazioni". He took in students from
all over Europe and many of the latter 18th century's most famous
performers were included - Pasqualino,
Carminati, Bini, Lombardini, Ferrari, Capuzzi, Girolamo Asconio
Giustiniani, Graun, Naumann and Holzbogen.He must have given careful
attention to each student: in 1737 he accepted only nine students,
although just four or five made him feel “like the most worried man on
earth.” His method of playing an adagio was said to be inimitable and
one of his favorite pupils and disciples, Pietro Nardini (1722-1793),
became the finest adagio player in Italy, if not all Europe. He also
became one of Tartini's closest friends. In Gaetano Pugnani, who studied
first under Giovanni Somis, Tartini had the greatest of his pupils.
Pugnani, who taught Viotti, united in himself the schools of Corelli and
Tartini.
Between 1739 and 1741 Tartini visited many Italian cities including
Naples and Rome where he composed, at Pope Clement XII's request, his
single composition for the church, Miserere,
for four, five, and eight voices, which was performed by the Sistine
choir 1768.
Tartini
had a scientific mind and accumulated a large, learned library,
primarily of music, philosophy, religion and mathematics. Gradually he became more interested in the theory of
harmony and
acoustics, and from 1750 to the end of his life he published various
treatises. He developed a style of bowing
that is still practiced as a standard, and the influence of his compositions
spread to France, England and Germany, but throughout the remaining twenty
years of his life Tartini concentrated on his theory more than composition. Athough not the first to discover the
so-called combination tone, third tone, or difference tone, which
results when two tones forming a perfect consonance are sounded, his
name has always been identified as the co-discoverer in 1714 because he
made it the basis of a new system of harmony which is now referred to as
"Tartini's tone," then laying down this system in his 1754 treatise,
"Trattato di musica."
He said that it was in Ancona that he
discovered the principles of the “third sound” or overtone produced when
two notes of a chord are played in perfect tune. Another example of his
research is that the diameters of violin strings in Stradivari’s day can
be deduced from experiments made by Tartini in 1734. His figure of 63
pounds of total string tension has not been disputed, and it allows the
diameters of the four strings to be calculated.
Tartini was a music theorist of a
very practical bent. He is credited with the discovery of
summation and
difference tones, an acoustical phenomenon of particular utility on
string instruments (intonation of double-stops can be judged by careful
listening to the difference tone, the 'terzo
suono'). He published his discoveries in several treatises on musical
theory:
- Trattato di Musica secondo la vera scienza
dell'Armonia (Padua, 1754) - acoustical findings. His theoretical system
incorporates the differential tone (terzo suono) which he claimed to have
discovered in 1714. Also in the Trattato are discussions of melody,
cadence types, dissonance, scale structure and harmonization, and meter.
- De' principi dell'armonia musicale nel
diatonico genere (1767), transcribed in 1771 after his death, but it
must have originated earlier, since material from it was used by Leopold
Mozart, father of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, n his Violinscule
(1756).
- Traite des agrements (published
posthumously in Paris in 1771).
|
Manuscript of the "Regole per suonare il
violino". |
Tartini's use of a secret code was the source of
much speculation until deciphered by Minos Dounias, a Greek musicologist
(1900-1962). His dissertation on Tartini's violin concertos (Die
Violinkonzerte Giuseppe Tartinis, Wolfenbüttel, 1935) catalogued them
according to tonality. The 'D' (Dounias) number does therefore not refer to
the chronology of composition.
The reasons for Tartini's use of a secret code are
speculative, but it is likely that he used it to hide secular ideas from
works played in church. Until Dounias deciphered the code in 1932 (using the
now standard method of analysis of letter frequency), many outlandish
theories were forwarded about the mystical qualities of what was written.
The rather prosaic quotations from libretti by Pietro Metastasio came as a
disappointment to many! The code is a simple substitution-cipher:
Violin
construction and musical treatises
Construction of violins,
violas and cellos in the 18th century was different from what it is
today. Most important was the difference in sound. Actually, there were
two sound ideals: one was called "human voice" and another "silvery ".
The first was considered the most appropriate for a concert violin, the
second for an orchestral violin.
Bagatella's method is a proportional design, in which all violin
parts assembled together in a perfect Harmony. He believed that things
were not in harmony at HIS time, but they were in harmony in the past
and he “discovered” the rules. Thus, to obtain a "human voice" the top
of an instrument must have an even thickness. To obtain a "silvery
voice" the top must be somewhat thicker in the middle. So when Bagatella
was demanded to create a "human voice" he had to make the thickness of
the top equal. When a "silvery voice" was demanded - the top had to be
left thicker in the middle, and made thinner toward the ribs. In both
cases both outline and thicknesses were changed proportionally.
Bagatella was
49 and a famous man in 1782 when he published his violin-making treatise,"Memoir, or Rules for the
construction of violins - violas - violoncellos - double basses". He
instructed on how to obtain a "silvery voice" or a "human voice". P. Lichtenthal,
connoisseur of Mozart, mentioned two sound ideals of
Mozart's time in his "Dictionary of Music", published in 1826,
making it apparent that two kinds of violins existed during
a few decades and were still remembered in the beginning of the 19th
century, due in no small part to Tartini's association with Bagatella.
|
In 1740, Tartini reputedly sliced up his hand
in a fencing match and had to quit playing the violin. Frustrated by this,
he took up composing and attracted young protégés from all over Europe.
His violin compositions and works are the repertoires of present-day violin virtuosi.
Il trillo del diavolo
One of
Tartini's
best known sonatas is
Il trillo del diavolo (Vražji
trilček, Devil's Trill
or Devil's Sonata) which was published posthumously. In 1765, he
allegedly told the French astronomer Jérôme Lalande that he dreamed that the
devil appeared to him and asked to be his servant. At the end of their
lessons Tartini handed the devil his violin to test his skil — the devil
immediately began to play.
Tartini tells us:
"One night I dreamed I had made a
pact with the devil for my soul. Everything went as I desired: my new
servant anticipated my every wish. I had the idea of giving him my violin to
see if he might play me some pretty tunes, but imagine my astonishment when I
heard a sonata so unusual and so beautiful performed with such mastery and
intelligence, on a level I had never before conceived was possible. I was so
overcome that I stopped breathing and awoke gasping. Immediately I seized my
violin, hoping to recall some shred of what I had just heard - but in vain.
The piece I then composed is without doubt my best, the Devil's Sonata, but
it falls so far short of the one that stunned me that I would have smashed
my violin and given up music forever if I could but possess it."
The result is a wild bit of madness (keep
in mind we're talking Baroque music here, not Black Sabbath) in three
movements and it successful with his audience. The
Devil's Sonata is so treacherous that it almost seems to spite those who might dare
attempt it. Andrew Manze, dubbed "the Grapelli of the Baroque," in his
interpretation of this composition rips through this obstacle course of
trills and finger stretches at lightning speed; he saws away with such
vigor that occasionally the violin runs actually sound more like a
burning bluegrass fiddle or a Hendrix guitar riff than a Baroque sonata,
only to drop back into controlled quietude once again. The textures and
mood changes that Manze pulls out of Tartini's work are phenomenal for
such a short piece (the entire work is only 18 minutes). It's
hair-raising, thrilling stuff due not only to the content of the work
but to its insane, perfectionist execution.
The date of the sonata is uncertain; Lalande wrote that the dream
occurred in 1713, but music historians have found it difficult to place the
sonata earlier than about 1745 on stylistic grounds. What we do know is that
it was not published until almost thirty years after Tartini’s death, in
1798. The manuscript was said to have come from Pierre Baillot, who had
studied violin in Rome for a number of years, returning to Paris in 1791.
The annotation about the Devil at the foot of the bed was apparently not
written in Tartini’s code, at least not in the published edition. The code
was deciphered only in 1935; the annotations were shown to be mottos and
fragments of secular poetry by Metastasio, Petrarch and Tasso, which might
have been contrary to church strictures.
Officially retiring from St. Anthony's in 1765, the same year that
Tartini purportedly told Lalande of his dream, Tartini remained active
as a teacher until a mild stroke, which he suffered in 1768, incapacitated
him even further. In 1769, his former student and friend Nardini returned to
Padua and stayed with him in his final illness, Tartini’s wife Elizabetta
having died the previous year. Antonio Vandini, a cellist, his colleague and
friend in Padua, must have been with him as well and was most likely the
original compiler of information about Tartini’s early life. Tartini died on
February 26, 1770, the year of Beethoven's birth.
The city of Padua put on
an elaborate funeral for him at the Basilica of St. Anthony, Cloister, a
small 13th century church connected with the University of Law in Padua.
The Church of Santa Caterina was rebuilt at the end of the 17th century following an
aisleless plan. The façade dates back to the late classical period and
is now being radically restored. It contains a Baroque high altar with
statues which are ascribed to Giovanni Bonazza and an altarpiece by M.
Bonaccorso, as well as the tomb of Tartini and his wife.
|
|
Tartini Square and Monument - Piran, Slovenia
Photographed by Marisa Ciceran, 30 July 2000 |
The town of Piran raised a
monument to the memory of Giuseppe Tartini in 1896 (the 200th
anniversary of his birth) on the main square which is also named after
him.
Also named in his honor is the house in which
Tartini was born and the theatre which is the central cultural institution
in Piran. Tartini's house has been restored and is open to the public. In
1845 a memorial plaque was built into the facade in memory of the great
maestro.
|
|
Tartini's
House -
Piran, Istria, Slovenia
Photographed by Marisa Ciceran, 30 July 2000
|
200th centenary medal
|
In
1952,
fellow Istrian-born
Luigi Dallapiccola,
completed a composition based on themes by Tartini that he called
Tartiniana I, and in 1956
it was followed by
Tartiniana II.
The Tartini Family Tomb in Piran
At the 300th
anniversary of Giuseppe Tartini's birth, the exact plan of old
tombs was found in the archives of the Minorite Church of St. Francis in
Piran.
Among those tombs there was also one belonging to the Tartini family. The church
has many tombs that have never been marked, so the exact place of the Tartini's
tomb could never been located. Besides the tomb plans another document was
discovered, confirming the discovery.
The friars chose the father of the famous violin player,
Giovanni Antonio Tartini, as patron of the monastery. On 25 May 1699 he was
given a church tomb that earlier belonged to the Petronio family. He received
the tomb as a sign of gratitude for his close ties with the monastery. The
family of Tartini was reminded several times to mark the tomb with their name,
which never happened. On 12 March 1992 the tomb was opened and it was confirmed
that the remains of the deceased are still in it.
Nine members of the Tartini family are buried in the tomb;
there are no documents whether Giuseppe Tartini's father lies there, too. In
March 1992 the monastery furnished the tomb with an inscription in Latin:
HOC SEPVLCRVM CONVENTVS OFM CONV FAMILIAE
TARTINI DONAVIT A.D. MDCLXXXXIX ((This tomb was donated to the Tartini family by the Minorite Cloister in 1699
A.D.)
Tartini's heritage
Tartini stood along with Vivaldi and Veracini as one of the great composers,
violinists and theorists of the 18th century. His heritage
is kept in a Piran museum and in the regional archives in Koper (Capodistria)
and Izola (Isola).
Unlike most of his Italian contemporaries, Tartini wrote no operas. His compositions include more than 130
Concerti for violin, two Concerti for flute and two Cello
concerti as well as over 170 Sonatas for violin, with or without
continuo, some 50 Sonatas a Tre and 4 Sonatas a
Quatre, his single composition for the church, Miserere,
for four, five, and eight voices, and a small number of sacral vocal pieces
written in the last
year of his life. The romantic lyricism in his music was occasionally
combined with Slavic folk elements which may reflect his stay in Prague (ed. or
could it reflect the Slavic influence of early childhood in his native Istria?).
Only some 20 concerti and 50 sonatas were ever published
so the remainder exist only in the forms of manuscripts. Apparently he was
unconcerned with self-marketing, and many of his "programs" have only been
reconstructed from private correspondence in the twentieth century.
Tartini's music is problematic to scholars and editors because
Tartini never put dates on his manuscripts, and he also revised works that had
been published or even finished years before, making it difficult to determine
when a work was written, when it was revised and what the extent of those
revisions were.
Due to the lack of chronology in Tartini's manuscripts, the scholars
Dounias and
Brainard have attempted to divide Tartini's works into periods based
entirely on the stylistic characteristics of the music. A catalogue of Tartini's
concerti was drawn up by Doumias, numbered according to their keys. It was
possible for some of
the works published during Tartini's lifetime to be dated a little more
accurately and Doumias has divided the remainder on style, sorting the concerti
into three main periods: prior to 1735, 1735-1750 and after 1750.
Sources:
- Tartini family tomb -
https://www.ijs.si/piran97/eng/ob_srecanju/piran/grobnica.html
- Library of Congress Citations -
https://malvm1.mala.bc.ca/~mcneil/cit/citlctartini.htm
-
Selected works -
https://members.tripod.com/~go54321/tartini.html
-
https://aviolinslife.org/tartinilipinski/#lightbox/0/
-
https://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~tas3/tartini.html
-
https://www.medieval.org/emfaq/cds/hmu7213.htm
-
https://www.geocities.com/Vienna/Strasse/1324 (no
longer available)
-
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14462a.htm
-
https://www.wfmu.org/~kennyg/popular/reviews/tartini.html
-
https://kosmac.o-ckpiran.kp.edus.si/USERS/TATJANA/giussep1.htm (no longer
available)
-
https://www.hoasm.org/VIIID/Tartini.html
-
Images - Musica Classica,
https://www.karadar.net/PhotoGallery/tartini.html
-
Text and drawing (dream) -
https://www.ppmusic.com/music/comp10.htm
-
https://www.karadar.net/PhotoGallery/tartini.html
-
Bagatella -
https://www.classicalforums.com/articles/Mozart_Violin.html
Photo sources:
-
Statue (Padua) -
https://www.apt.padova.it/otg-en/storill16.htm
- https://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/tartini.php
- https://www.oae.co.uk/people/giuseppe-tartini-1692-1770/
- https://wormedofhorrors.blogspot.com/2011_03_27_archive.html
- https://kids.britannica.com/comptons/art-174366/Giuseppe-Tartini
|