TARTINI, GIUSEPPE Italian violinist, corn poser and musical theorist, was born at Pirano, Istria, on April 8, 1692. In early life he studied, with equal want of success, for the church, the law courts and the profession of arms. As a young man he was wild and irregular, and he crowned his impro prieties by clandestinely marrying the niece (or the daughter of a dependent) of Cardinal Cornaro, archbishop of Padua. The car dinal resented the marriage and Tartini, thinking his life in dan ger, fled for safety to a monastery at Assisi, where his character underwent a complete change. He studied the theory of music under Padre Boemo, the organist of the monastery, and learned to play the violin in so masterly a style that his performances in the church became the wonder of the neighbourhood. For more than two years his identity remained undiscovered, but one day the wind blew aside a curtain behind which he was playing. His retreat was betrayed to the cardinal, who, hearing of his changed character, readmitted him to favour and restored him to his wife. Tartini next removed to Venice, where he repaired, by the aid of good instruction, the shortcomings of his own self-taught method. After a period of study at Ancona, he returned to Padua, where he was appointed solo violinist at the church of San An tonio. From 723 to 1725 he acted as conductor of Count Kin
sky's private band in Prague. In 1728 he founded a school for the violin in Padua. The date of his presence in Rome does not seem to be clearly established, but he was in Bologna in 1739. Afterwards he returned to his old post in Padua, where he died on Feb. 16, 177o.
Tartini's numerous compositions illustrate his passionate and masterly style of execution, in which he surpassed all his contem poraries. He frequently headed his pieces with an explanatory poetical motto, such as "Ombra cara," or "Volgete it riso in pianto o mie pupille." He told Lalande-in 1766 that the sonata known as II Trillo del Diavolo, or The Devil's Sonata, was the fruit of a dream, in which the devil played an exquisite sonata. Tartini's first book of sonatas was published at Amsterdam in 1734, the second at Rome in 1745, and many chamber works appeared during his lifetime.
Tartini contributed to the science of acoustics by his dis covery (independently of Sorge, 174o, to whom the primary credit is now given) of what are still called "Tartini's tones" (see