Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Giuseppe Tartini

TARTINI, Giuseppe (1692–1770), violinist, composer, and musical theorist, was born at Pirano, April 12, 1692, and in early life studied, with equal want of success, for the church, the law courts, and the profession of arms. His life as a young man was wild and irregular, and his temper extremely violent and impulsive. His unfitness for an ecclesiastical career was manifest; and, after failing in jurisprudence, he crowned his improprieties by clandestinely marrying the niece of Cardinal Cornaro, arch-bishop of Padua. Though the family of Tartini had been legally ennobled, the cardinal resented the marriage as a disgraceful mésalliance, and denounced it so violently that the unhappy bridegroom, thinking his life in danger, fled for safety to a monastery at Assisi, where, calmed by the soothing influence of the religious life, his character underwent a complete change. Docile and obedient, as he had before been passionate and headstrong, he studied the theory of music under Padre Boemo, the organist of the monastery, and, without any assistance whatever, taught himself 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, and one of his hearers recognized him and betrayed his retreat to the cardinal, who, hearing of his changed character, re-admitted him to favour and restored him to his wife.

Tartini next removed to Venice, where the fine violin-playing of Veracini excited his admiration and prompted him to repair, by the aid of good instruction, the shortcomings of his own self-taught method. After this he studied for some time at Ancona; and here, about 1714, he made the curious acoustical discovery on which his fame as a theorist chiefly rests. He observed that, when two notes are sounded together on the violin with sufficient intensity, a third sound, distinct from both, is simultaneously produced. For the production of this “third sound,” as he called it, Tartini failed to account on strict mathematical principles. When the two primary notes form an impure consonance, the “third sound” of Tartini (now known as a difference tone of the first order) is accompanied by beats due to the presence of different tones of higher orders, the existence of which, unknown of course to Tartini, has been established by Helmholtz. Tartini made his observations the basis of a theoretical system which he set forth in his Trattato di Musica, secondo la vera scienzia dell' Armonia (Padua, 1754) and Dei Principij dell' Armonia Musicale (Padua, 1767). In 1721 he returned to Padua, where he was appointed solo violinist at the church of San Antonio. From 1723 to 1726 he acted as conductor of Count Kinsky's private band, but afterwards returned to his old post at Padua, where he died on February 16, 1770.

Tartini’s compositions are very numerous, and faithfully illustrate his passionate and masterly style of execution, which surpassed in brilliancy and refined taste that of all his contemporaries. He frequently headed his pieces with an explanatory poetical motto, such as “Ombra cara,” or “Volgete il riso in pianto o mie pupille.” Concerning that known as Il Trillo del Diavolo, or The Devil's Sonata, he told a curious story to Lalande, in 1766. He dreamed that the devil had become his slave, and that he one day asked him if he could play the violin. The devil replied that he believed he could pick out a tune, and thereupon he played a sonata so exquisite that Tartini thought he had never heard any music to equal it. On awaking, he tried to note down the composition, but succeeded very imperfectly, though the resulting Devil's Sonata is one of his best and most celebrated productions.

Besides the theoretical works we have mentioned, Tartini wrote a Trattato delle Appogiature, posthumously printed in French, and an unpublished work, Delle Ragioni e delle Proporzioni, the MS. of which has been lost.