Giuseppe Tartini - Guida

Giuseppe Tartini was born in Piran (Istria) in 1692, the fourth child of Giovanni Antonio Tartini, a Florentine who was appointed manager of the salt mills by the Republic of Venice, and Caterina Zangrando, who belonged to one of the city’s oldest families. After early studies in his home town, Giuseppe attended the schools of the Scolopi Fathers in Capodistria , and in 1708 was sent by the family to study law in Padua , with permission to wear clerical robes as he was destined for a career in the church. The contemporary biographers, however, describe him as little inclined to comply with his family’s wishes, and keener on fencing, in which he seemed to excel, than on the law. The event that marked a decisive turning point in his life was his marriage to Elisabetta Premazore , a girl of humble condition, in 1710 when he was 18, probably without informing his family. Shortly afterwards, however, we find him fleeing from Padua, perhaps for fear of the reaction of the bishop of Padua (who had been alerted by the family in Piran), and taking refuge in the Franciscan convent of Assisi , where a maternal uncle, Father Giovanni Torre, was guardian. It was there, most likely, that he found the opportunity to develop his gifts as a violin virtuoso and to learn the art of counterpoint, and there he remained in hiding until 1713, when he was fortuitously recognised by a Paduan pilgrim, became reconciled with his family and the bishop, and returned to his wife. After several years of musical commitments in Venice , where he also met the great virtuoso violinist Francesco Maria Veracini , and in the opera houses of various Italian cities, including Ancona, Fano and Camerino, he also performed in Cremona, Milan, Bologna and perhaps even Naples and Palermo. The big opportunity of his life was his appointment, without the need to be examined, to the musical chapel of the basilica di S. Antonio in Padua in 1721 as Primo violino e capo dei concerti , at the instigation of Gerolamo Giustiniani, a noble Venetian to whose son Tartini was giving violin lessons. He was to maintain the position until the final years of his life, excepting three years spent in Prague from 1723 to 1726, following an invitation to come with his friend the cellist Don Antonio Vandini for the coronation of the emperor Charles VI as king of Bohemia. On his return from Prague he settled definitively in Padua, where he also devoted himself to teaching the violin and counterpoint and founded a school attended by students from all over Europe, thus earning him earned him the title of “Master of the Nations” . Giuseppe Tartini