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

320 67. Tartini to F. Algarotti Here are the six concertos, which through you were commissioned to me by His Highness the Lord Prince of Lobkowicz. Three had been made recently; the other three were made after the commission. I wish to live up to the taste of His Highness, whom (prostrating myself deeply at his feet) I beg you to inform that he shall find two easy concertos: one in Ffaut, the other in Gsolreut, which begins in common time; and that the easy execution depends upon the practice of the smanicatura a mezzo manico [second position], of which I make such a wide use that for me and my school it is more nature than art. My discretion also compels me to inform you that I have cause to suspect that the copyist has purloined, by means of a double copy, one of these six concertos; namely that in B minor. 43 I am not certain, but very much fear it. I have expressed myself enough with the aforementioned; but if he has purloined it, it shall be to no avail, as the soul is base and need is proportionate to poverty. I am likewise sorry about this, because it is a concerto of a peculiar taste, upon which I shall have the pleasure of learning the judgement and opinion of His Highness; and, with the exception of just one double stop, it can easily be played by His Highness. I have received an answer from my student Signor Pasqual Bini, who is most ready to receive the service of His Highness if two conditions are granted to him. One of them is that if he must come there, he wishes for the company of a brother of his for the journey, and to stay for three or four months in those lands; until he is assured of the effect of the climate on his health. If the climate is found to be suitable, his brother shall return home; if the opposite is found, he wishes to return home in the company of his brother. The other condition is that if ever His Highness (receiving him in his service) were to take him with him to Italy, he should free him from the obligation of accompanying him to Rome, where the poor young man has experienced many calamities to both body and soul. To all of Italy and the whole world, yes; to Rome, no. The young man has written to me in these terms, and thus I faithfully transcribe. The fact is that this young man does not possess much spiritual strength: excellent and saintly in his manners, marvellous in his profession, but with a weak spirit. Persecuted in Rome after the death of His Eminence Acquaviva (who was his patron), he took the persecution in such a way that he almost went insane; he therefore left Rome, renouncing the more than justified hope of entering in just a few weeks into the service of the Cardinal of York, 44 from whose requests to have him in his service he defends himself with difficulty, staying at his house and in his home town, which is Pesaro. This is the origin of his reluctance to allow himself to be seen 43 The concerto can be identified as D125, Concerto per violino e archi in si minore . 44 Henry Stuart, Cardinal of York (1725-1807).