Giuseppe Tartini - Lettere e documenti / Pisma in dokumenti / Letters and Documents - Volume / Knjiga / Volume I

77 INTRODUCTION that wellbeing, which everybody develops in their own way, which was already formed in me many years ago, and which has become more than natural for me, is incompatible with any other change in lifestyle. Also wishing to give an account of Tartini’s thoughts with regard to modifying the compositions of others, the author provides a complete transcription of a letter to an amateur Venetian musician of 1766: Most Illustrious Sir, Lord and Worthiest Patron, I have received and delivered the second part of Corelli’s Opus Five turned into concertos by Geminiani, to the copyist, whom I had already paid for the copying of the first. With regard to the variation which you do not like, and you wish to have changed, may Your Most Illustrious Lordship forgive me, in hoc non laudo . Neither you nor I, nor as many, can reasonably take this liberty. It could perforce be taken, but this would be an insult to the composer: too many are the musical things that do not meet one’s particular tastes. You must grant me that not for this does he who does not appreciate them have the authority to change them: rather, he has the right to not want them for his own use. But that the whole opus should suit you: that variation does not suit you, and so you want it changed as opposed to the whole opus, which is excellent and approved, durus est fermo hic , at least to my ears. As a good Servant I tell you my opinion, and then may you do as you wish. But on this point write back to me and decide, because the copyist has received my order not to proceed with the copy when he reaches that point if he has not previously been notified by me of what he must do. I entreat you to convey my deepest regards to Her Eminence the Patroness, and with full reverence I declare myself and remain your Most Illustrious Lordship’s most humble devout and obliged servant Giuseppe Tartini Padua, 23 February 1766. The last letter cited by Fanzago was sent by Tartini to Angelo Gabrielli, the dedica- tee of Tartini’s dissertation Dei Principj dell’Armonia Musicale contenuta nel Diatonico Genere . 54 On 30 January 1767 Tartini wrote: This work, which you call my old Treatise of Music , and a recent reply of mine to a critic of the said treatise, which shall be in your hands in a few days, form and truly are the shadow of that body which is shortly due to appear publicly. The “body” to which Tartini refers is probably Il Trattato della teoria del suono , a text of a theoretical-mathematical nature that Padre Giovanni Alberto Colombo, 55 profes- 54 Fanzago, 1770: p. 48. 55 Colombo, Giovanni Alberto (?-ca. 1770), a monk from Monte Cassino born in Venice in the early years of the 18th century. He taught philosophy, physics, geography, astronomy and meteorology at the