Giuseppe Tartini

Tartini was sent to Padua to study law and was known in his youth as a fencer. After his marriage to Elisabetta Premazore in 1710 he went to Assisi; the reasons for his departure remain uncertain. Born at Pirano in Venetian Istria in 1692 — Piran, in Slovenia, today — he settled in Padua and in 1721 became first violinist and head of the instrumental ensemble at the Basilica of Saint Anthony. The violin school he opened there drew pupils from several countries and became known as the School of Nations. Discover Tartini dates its foundation to 1727, while the Sofia Philharmonic biography gives 1726. His teaching included bow control and the imitation of the singing voice. He left more than a hundred concertos and a large body of sonatas, and he spent years on acoustics, describing combination tones. After hearing Francesco Maria Veracini in Venice in 1716, he practised intensively in Ancona. Accounts of his time in Assisi associate him with Bohuslav Matěj Černohorský, though formal study with him is not established. He served Count Kinsky in Prague from 1723; Discover Tartini dates his return to Padua to 1726, rather than the 1725 given in the Sofia Philharmonic biography. He was the first known owner of the 1715 Stradivari later known as the Lipiński and also played the ex-Vogelweith of 1711. His output includes 135 violin concertos and a Stabat Mater of 1769. A Miserere of 1767 was performed in the Sistine Chapel in 1768 for Clement XIII. He died of gangrene in Padua on 26 February 1770.