[22] According to Dr. Burney’s reckoning, his term of years would have been 96: the reason for supposing that authority erroneous has been already stated.
[23] It is a somewhat curious circumstance that the descendant of Carbonelli, with an i less than his progenitor, is at this day exercising that very liquid calling which finally prevailed with the man of music. Whether, besides selling superlative wine, he makes any pretension to support the ancestral honors on the violin, is a point I am unable to determine.
[24] There is another account of this love episode in Tartini’s life, which does not conduct it so far as matrimony, but represents that, when all the arguments of his friends against the match were found to be without effect, his father was compelled to confine him to his room; and that, in order to engage his attention, he furnished him with books and musical instruments, by means of which he soon overcame his passion! This statement, so opposed to the general experience of such matters, will easily be discredited by all youthful hearts. Cure a young gentleman’s passion, his first love, by locking him up in a study! Preposterous. Let us cling to the more current account, and confide in probability and Dr. Burney.
[25] Of several treatises which Tartini has written, the one most celebrated, his “Trattato di Musica, secondo in vera scienza dell’ Armonia,” is that in which he unfolds the nature of this discovery, and deduces many observations tending to explain the musical scale, and, in the opinion of some persons, to correct several of the intervals of which it is composed.
[26] For Tartini’s judicious letter of elementary hints, addressed to Madame Sirmen, see the chapter on Female Violinists.
[27] Query, Solo?—Printer’s Imp.
[28] See the reference to the old sacerdotal habit of fiddling, at page 55.
[29] In his “Sonate Accademiche,” opera seconda, published in London, 1744, we meet (observes Mr. G. F. Graham), on the page immediately preceding the music, with the first example we have noticed in Sonate of that time, of an explanation of marks of bowing and expression that occur in the course of the work. His marks for crescendo-diminuendo, and for diminuendo, and for crescendo, are of the same form as the modern ones—only black throughout.—His mark for an up-bow consists of a vertical line drawn from the interior of a semi-circle placed beneath it. His mark for a down-bow is the same figure reversed in position;—Mr. for mordente, &c. These are things worth noticing in old music. In pages 67-9, of the same work, Veracini gives the Scottish air of Tweedside, with variations; the first instance we know, of Scottish music being so honored by an old Italian violinist.
[30] “I cannot understand how Arts and Sciences should be subject unto any such fantastical, giddy, or inconsiderate toyish conceits, as ever to be said to be in fashion, or out of fashion.”—Mace’s Music’s Monument.
[31] It was remarked, while he was in England, that his execution was astonishing, but that he dealt occasionally in such tricks as tended to excite the risible faculty, rather than the admiration, of his auditors.