written by Carlotta and Nele (Neues Gymnasium Wilhelmshaven, class 9)

Piran is the city of Giuseppe Tartini. Obviously. During our trip to Piran we were standing st the famous Tartini square, built in 1894. We saw a life-sized statue of bronze of Tartini which was unveiled two years later, in 1896. On the Eastern side of the square we met in front the house where Tartini was born.

But who is Giuseppe Tartini?

Giuseppe Tartini, born on the 8th of April 1692 in Piran was an Italian violonist, composer and music theorist. His parents, however, had other plans for him. They had decided that he should make a religious career. He was sent to the university of Capodistria (Slovenian name: Kopar, a harbour town between Piran and Trieste) and studied arts, rhetoric and music. He was supposed also to study jurisprudence at the university of Padua. But the only classes he attended were fencing classes.

In July 1710 he caused even more controversies with his family because he married a girl from Padua with the name Elizabetha Premazore who was of lower social status.

Due to that, Tartini had to flee to the monastery San Francesco located in Assisi, Italy. There he spent three years. He teached himself to play the violin. He was a musician in the orchestra of Assisi from 1714 and became conductor of the famous orchestra of the church of Saint Anthony in Padua in 1721. This was the begin of his career as a musician.

In Padua he founded his own music school which was attended by many Europea musicians.

After the death of is wife Elizabetha he lived together with the cellist Antonio Vandini. For him he composed his cello concerts.

Tartini died in february 1770.

Today he is mostly known for his "Devil's Trill Sonata".

There is a story behind this piece of music:

The story goes that when Tartini was in the monastery of Saint Francis of Assisi he once dreamed about the devil that he was playing on Tartini's violin an undescribable sonata. After waking up, Tartini immediately tried to rewrite that sonata. Tartini himself said that although this work was his best it wasn't even close to the sounds that he was hearing in his dream.