Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770) was the son of wealthy, pious parents who wanted him to be educated for Holy Orders in Padua. Instead he enrolled in the law school of the University of Padua in 1708. While there he indulged his passions for fencing, dueling, music and art.
Shortly before he was twenty he took the completely unexpected step of secretly marrying Elisabetta Premazore, who was two years older than himself. She was the ward (perhaps the daughter or niece) of Cardinal Giorgio Cornaro, the Bishop of Padua.
The Cardinal's wrath immediately descended on Tartini. He ordered Tartini's arrest, and the young man's parents quickly disowned him. Disguised as a monk, the young bridegroom hastily fled from the city, taking anonymous refuge in a monastery in Assisi.
While hiding out in the monastery for two years, Tartini undertook intensive studies in music and violin playing, studying composition with the Bohemian monk Bohuslav Czernohorsky. By 1715 his violinistic prowess was attracting much attention and many people came to the monastery just to hear his playing.
He soon gained such a favorable a reputation as a violinist that both his family and Cardinal Cornaro forgave him his transgressions. He was called hack to Padua in 1721 to rejoin his wife and to take up an engagement as "primo Violino, e Capo di concerto" in St. Anthony's Church. He occupied this position for the remainder of his life, apart from a two-year stay (1723-1725) in Prague, during which he directed the orchestra of the chancellor of Bohemia.
In 1728 Tartini founded a school of violin playing and composition in Padua, which later became known as the "School of Nations" since it attracted students from many countries. Pietro Nardini was his most prominent pupil. Tartini's playing was notable for its poetic and technical perfection.
His bowing technique became the model for virtually all later violinists. He advanced the potential of his instrument more than any before him. After 1740, his solo performances became less and less frequent as he devoted himself increasingly to writing theatrical works.
In these polemical treatises he sought to combine music with geometry and algebra as well as religious and philosophical considerations, an undertaking to which Tartini's contemporaries took violent exception. In 1768 he suffered a stroke, but in his articles he continued to wage numerous battles about musical theory with his opponents right up to the time of his death. The last years of his life were spent in pain from a malignant growth on his foot.
Tartini's list of compositions include about 125 violin concertos, a few concerto for other instruments, numerous trio sonatas, more than 175 violin sonatas, as well as quartets, trios, and several symphonies. In addition, during the last year of his life he wrote a small number of sacred vocal pieces. In his later compositions melodic expressiveness reigns supreme, supplanting the purely technical virtuosity characteristic of his earlier works.
