Ole Bull makes contact with Giuseppe Tartini

Posted on August 29th, 2012 by


In August 1834 Ole Bull was in Padua, where he met a 90-year old violinist who had been a student of Tartini, who had died 64 years earlier. He wrote to his mother: “I sought him out, and begged him to take his violin so that I might hear him play. With the greatest amiability, he took out an old Amati. The very sight of it made me begin to weep. And then he drew his bow, so I could hear the tone through which I understood answered all of Tartini’s Method, just as could be seen in the letter from the famous master.”

Link to Tartini-30 Sonatas

Giuseppe Tartini-‘Aria-Tasso’ (Peter Sheppard Skaerved-Violin)

 

At the beginning of his career, Bull sought out the legacy of the earlier Italian virtuosi-convinced that their secret could unlock a means of enchanting his audiences

Tartini in the last years of his life, by George Dance