23 Facts About Giuseppe Tartini

Giuseppe Tartini was an Italian composer and violinist of the Baroque era born in Pirano in the Republic of Venice.

Giuseppe Tartini is best remembered for his Violin Sonata in G Minor.

Giuseppe Tartini studied violin first at the collegio delle Scuole Pie in Capodistria.

Giuseppe Tartini studied law at the University of Padua, where he became skilled at fencing.

Giuseppe Tartini fled Padua to go to the monastery of St Francis in Assisi, where he could escape prosecution.

Legend says when Giuseppe Tartini heard Francesco Maria Veracini's playing in 1716, he was impressed by it and dissatisfied with his own skill.

Giuseppe Tartini fled to Ancona and locked himself away in a room to practice, according to Charles Burney, "in order to study the use of the bow in more tranquility, and with more convenience than at Venice, as he had a place assigned him in the opera orchestra of that city".

Giuseppe Tartini's skill improved tremendously and, in 1721, he was appointed Maestro di Cappella at the Basilica di Sant'Antonio in Padua, with a contract that allowed him to play for other institutions if he wished.

Giuseppe Tartini was the first known owner of a violin made by Antonio Stradivari in 1715, which Giuseppe Tartini bestowed upon his student Salvini, who in turn gave it to the Polish composer and virtuoso violinist Karol Lipinski upon hearing him perform: the instrument is thus known as the Lipinski Stradivarius.

Giuseppe Tartini owned and played the Antonio Stradivarius violin ex-Vogelweith from 1711.

In 1726, Giuseppe Tartini started a violin school which attracted students from all over Europe.

Gradually, Giuseppe Tartini became more interested in the theory of harmony and acoustics and from 1750 to the end of his life he published various treatises, in which he treated problems of music theory on a mathematical basis.

Giuseppe Tartini's birthday is celebrated by a concert in the main town cathedral.

Almost all of Giuseppe Tartini's works are violin concerti and violin sonatas.

Giuseppe Tartini's compositions include some sacred works such as a Miserere, composed between 1739 and 1741 at the request of Pope Clement XII, and a Stabat Mater, composed in 1769.

Giuseppe Tartini composed trio sonatas and a sinfonia in A Cataloguing Tartini's compositions is a challenge for scholars and editors.

Giuseppe Tartini never dated his manuscripts, and revised works that had been completed or even published long before, making it difficult to determine when a work was written, when it was revised, and the extent of the revisions.

Sixty-two manuscripts with compositions of Giuseppe Tartini are housed at the Biblioteca comunale Luciano Benincasa in Ancona.

Giuseppe Tartini is credited with the discovery of sum and difference tones, an acoustical phenomenon of particular utility on string instruments.

Giuseppe Tartini published his discoveries in a treatise "Trattato di musica secondo la vera scienza dell'armonia".

Giuseppe Tartini is mentioned in Madame Blavatsky's "The Ensouled Violin", a short story included in the collection Nightmare Tales.

Giuseppe Tartini's inspired performance on the violin secured for him in his native country the title of "Master of Nations".

Giuseppe Tartini confessed to having written it on awakening from a dream, in which he had heard his sonata performed by Satan, for his benefit, and in consequence of a bargain made with his infernal majesty.