Born in Pirano, Istria [now Piran, Istra, Slovenia], April 8, 1692
Died in Padua, Feb 26, 1770
- Tartini was a virtuosic self-taught violinist, a teacher of violin, a composer, and a writer on music theory.
- Tartini’s parents intended for him to become a priest, though he focused his studies on law and fencing more than theology. He rebelled soon after his father’s death and got married, and actually had to go into hiding in a monastery in a different town to escape the wrath of his bishop and his family.
- Tartini preferred to compose for his own instrument, the violin, going to far as to refuse Venetian opera companies’ requests to write operas.
- Musicologists have found it nearly impossible to date most of Tartini’s compositions. He purposefully refused to put dates on his manuscripts, and he often returned to them multiple times throughout his life to revise.1
- His letter on violin technique to his student, composer Maddalena Lombardini Sirmen, is a valuable reference on historic violin pedagogy.
Sources
- Pierluigi Petrobelli, “Tartini, Giuseppe,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed July 22, 2021, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000027529.