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Updated: June 18, 2025


One of those pupils is Narbini, who is now an old man of seventy, capable only of inward music; and the other, as I think, gentlemen, you are aware, is myself. Consequently, I am now the sole individual in whom the true art of violin-playing survives; and my zealous endeavours will, I trust and believe, not fail to perpetuate that art which found its creator in Tartini.

As he was trying to compose a sonata and the muse remained recalcitrant, he went to sleep and he saw in a dream the devil, who seized his violin and played with master hand the desired sonata. Tartini wrote it out from memory when he woke. It has come to us under the name of "The Devil's Sonata." But it is very difficult, in regard to such old cases, to distinguish between history and legend.

On the other hand there are Tartini, Nardini, Paganini, Kreutzer, Dont and Rode they still live; and so do Ernst, Sarasate, Vieuxtemps and Wieniawski. It is men such as these who always will remain violin 'masters, just as 'violin mastery' is defined by what they have done."

Tartini was engaged as conductor and remained in that position three years, then returning to his old post at Padua, from which nothing induced him to part, except for brief intervals. At Padua Tartini carried on the chief work of his life and established the Paduan school of violin playing. His ability as a teacher is proved by the large number of excellent pupils he formed.

At Ancona, Tartini attained such reputation as a player and musician that he was appointed, in 1721, to the directorship of the orchestra of the church of St. Anthony at Padua. Here, according to Fetis, he spent the remaining forty-nine years of his life in peace and comfort, solely occupied with the labors connected with the art he loved.

Tartini, even while absorbed in music, did not neglect the study of science and mathematics, of which he was passionately fond, and in the pursuit of which he might have made a name not less than his reputation as a musician.

"If I then played something from one of his concertos with my utmost verve, and happened to interpret this or the other passage of it better than usual, the Baron would look round with a smile of complacence, or of pride, and say: 'The boy has to thank me for that; me, pupil of the great Tartini!

So much of it as I remember I will tell you. "'Corelli, said the Baron, 'was the first to break out the path. His compositions can only be played in the real Tartini manner, and that is sufficient to prove how well he knew the true art of violin-playing. Pugnani is a passable player.

After some years of study and retirement, he reappeared at Padua, where he was appointed solo violinist in the chapel of San Antonio, the choir and orchestra of which already enjoyed a high reputation. It is said that the performance of Veracini had an effect upon Tartini beyond that of causing him to quit Venice.

So it may be said that Pugnani united in himself the schools of Corelli and Tartini, and was thus admirably fitted to be the instructor of that grand player, who was the first in date of the violin virtuosos of modern times, Viotti. Both as composer and performer, Pugnani was held in great esteem throughout Europe. His first meeting with Tartini was an incident of considerable interest.

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