Scan 53
Grove's dictionary of music and musicians;, 1904
10 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 25. See the scan on archive.org.
1this is found in his Trattato di musica secondo la vera scienza dell' Armonia, and in his De' principii dell' Armonia musicale, wherein he attempted to fathom some difficult acoustical problems, and raised some literary controversy on the subject, but entirely failed to come to a clear conclusion. Briefly, his observations led to the discovery of the generating sound which proceeds from two notes vibrated together, and this he employed as an excellent guide to perfect intonation in double-stopping. 'If you do not hear the bass,' he told his pupils, 'your thirds and sixths are not in tune'; but neither he nor his pupils could explain the phenomenon of this 'third sound,' since explained by Helmholtz under the title of 'differential tones.' His humble nature imbued him with a serene content, which was perhaps detrimental to his fame as a solo-player, for there is no doubt that he was the greatest scientific as well as practical violinist of his day. In spite of Quantz's oft-quoted but improbable statement that Tartini resorted to tricks, we have ample proof in his music, and in his Arte del Arco, that he was a magnificent cantabile player. Indeed, so sensible were the Italians of this exquisite quality in the great violinist that Mainwaring (Memoirs of the Life of Handel, 1760) tells us that his contemporaries often said of him: 'Non suona, ma canta sul Violino.' Yet it was his success as a teacher, rather than as a player, that made him world-famous. Such pupils as Nardini, Pasqualino, Bini, Alberghi, Manfredi, Ferrari, Graun, Carminato, Maddalena Lombardini (Madame Sirmen), to whom he addressed the oft-quoted Letter of Instruction, Pagin, Lahoussaye, and others were living proofs of his ability as a teacher, which attracted all the talent of the day to the 'School of Nations' in Padua. As a composer he combined the serenity and dignity of Corelli with an added grace and passion all his own, and his writing for the violin was technically more advanced and complicated than that of his predecessors. He contrived to infuse a variety of expression into his music lacking in the works of Corelli, and this is stated to have been due to his custom of selecting some phrase from Petrarch before he began to compose, and keeping the sense mirrored on his mind while at work. He not only thought of the chosen lines, but inscribed them in a cipher known only to himself and a chosen few, at the top of his MSS. A certain Melchior Babbi of Padua possessed the key to this cipher, and according to his account Tartini inscribed on one sonata the words 'Ombra sacra' ('Sacred shade'). On another 'Volge il riso in pianto o miei pupille' ('Turn laughter into tears, oh my eyes'). Signor Tebaldini confirms this statement and says that many of the MSS. preserved in the Cappella del Santo at Padua bear such inscriptions. There is a story that when Lipinski visited Trieste in 1818 he met one of Tartini's oldest pupils in the person of the lawyer Signor Constantino Mazzarana, who placed one of his master's MSS. before the violinist. Lipinski failed to play it to the satisfaction of his listener, who said, 'Read the inscription, and that will inspire you to play it with the right spirit,' which it is said he did.
3A complete and comprehensive list of Tartini MSS. is given in the Quellen-Lexikon, and according to this authority they are to be found in the public and Royal Libraries of Dresden, Konigsberg, Padua, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and the British Museum. The Journal Encyclopédique de Venise for 1775 contains a paragraph stating that Captain P. Tartini, a nephew of Giuseppe Tartini, had deposited the following MS. compositions of his uncle with Signor Antonio Zazzini (an excellent violinist): 42 Sonatas, 6 Sonatas and Trios, 114 Concertos, 13 Concertos, etc., which were offered for sale by Carminer at Venice.
5The number of his published compositions is very extensive. His first book of Sonatas, 'a 5 e 6 instrumenti,' op. 1, was published in Amsterdam, 1734. The second book appeared in Rome in 1745, and a large number of Concertos for violin solo with orchestral accompaniment, as well as a trio for two violins and a bass were published at various times at Amsterdam, Paris, and London. A considerable number have been arranged and edited in recent years by Signor Emilio Pente.
7His contributions to the literature of music were almost as numerous. The Municipio di Pirano possesses twenty-five of his MS. writings on matters dealing with various theoretical problems. His published works comprise: Trattato di Musica, etc., Padua, 1754 (Giov. Manfre), 2nd edition, Paris, 1767 (Leduc). French translation, Traité des Agréments, etc. . . . traduit par Sig. Denis, Paris, 1782. Riposta di G. T. alla Critica del di lui Trattato di Musica di Monsieur Serre di Ginevra, Venice, 1767. De' Principi dell' Armonia Musicale, Padua, 1767. English translation by Stillingtonfleet, London, 1771 (S. Baker and G. Leigh). Lettera del Defonto Sig. G. T. Alla Signora Maddalena Lombardini, Venice, 1770. Italian with English translations by Doctor Burney, London, 1771, 2nd edition, 1779. German translation of the same by H. H. Rohrmann, Hanover, 1786.
9A committee of Paduan admirers erected a life-size statue of Tartini in 1807 in the Prato della Valle, Padua. On the second centenary of Tartini's birth in 1892, the President of the Arca del Santo had a stone slab with a memorial inscription upon it placed in the first cloister of the Basilica. There is a portrait of him in the Gallery of the Filarmonico, Bologna. The engraver, Antoine Bonaventura Sberti, engraved a portrait of Tartini and placed the following distich upon it, written by Antonio Piombolo, professor of medicine at the University of Padua:
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