Giuseppe Tartini

Giuseppe Tartini (8 April 1692 – 26 February 1770) was an Italian composer and violinist of the Baroque era born in Pirano in the Republic of Venice (now Piran, Slovenia). Tartini was a prolific composer, composing over a hundred pieces for the violin, the majority of them violin concertos. He is best remembered for his Violin Sonata in G Minor (the Devil’s Trill Sonata). Early life Tartini was born on 8 April 1692 in Pirano (today Piran in Slovenia), a town on the peninsula of Istria, in the Republic of Venice to Gianantonio – native of Florence – and Caterina Zangrando, a descendant of one of the oldest aristocratic Piranese families. It appears Tartini’s parents intended him to become a Franciscan friar and, in this way, he received basic musical training. Tartini studied violin first at the collegio delle Scuole Pie in Capodistria (today Koper). 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. In Padua, he met and befriended fellow composer and theorist Francesco Antonio Vallotti. Between 1723 and 1725 he was in Prague,