Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770)
Lieto ti prendo e poi
Sonata XVII in D (B.D2)
Sonata XII in G (B.G2)
Sonata IV in C (B.C1)
Sonata VI in E minor (B.e1)
Sonata XV in G (B.G3)
Sonata XIX in D (B.D3)
Lavinia Soncini (violin)
rec. 2023, Palazzo Cigola-Martinoni, Cigole, Italy
Reviewed as a stereo 16/44 download from Da Vinci Classics
Da Vinci Classics C00884 [55]

Giuseppe Tartini was one of the greatest Italian violin virtuosos of his time, and one could consider him the successor of Vivaldi. However, they were very different. That was not just a matter of contrasting characters. It had everything to do with artistic views. Tartini was very critical of the tendency to put virtuosity at the centre of performance. Roger-Claude Travers, in the liner-notes to the recording of concertos by Locatelli, Vivaldi and Tartini with Giuliano Carmignola and the Venice Baroque Orchestra (Archiv 474 5172), writes: “By the early 1730s Tartini had found a distinctive voice of his own, speaking a language that combines the art of cantabile writing with instrumental virtuosity, while eschewing the departures of composers like Locatelli, who straddled the gulf between performance and tradition, and, above all, Vivaldi, with his blithe blurring of the dividing line between theatricality and the concerto. (…) His aim was to rediscover in violin playing the perfect, natural sound of the singing human voice. It was an ethical position.”

Tartini has become best known for his violin concertos – of which only a few are part of the standard repertoire – and even more for one violin sonata with the nickname ‘The Devil’s Trill’. This piece was played at concerts long before the revival of early music; in the 19th century it was played by the great virtuosos, accompanied by the piano. Probably the least-known part of Tartini’s output for violin solo are sonatas which can be played without the support of a basso continuo. A volume of such pieces, with the title 26 Piccole Sonate, is preserved in the Biblioteca del Santo in Padua. The liner-notes to the present disc mention that the second part of the manuscript includes five more sonatas, which are not easy to reconstruct. The manuscript once belonged to Tartini himself as the sonatas were written for his own use. That did not prevent him from sending a copy of them to Frederick the Great. It seems unlikely that he expected them to be performed at the king’s court, but such moves were first and foremost intended to improve one’s status. Tartini added a bass part to some of them, but – as he wrote in a letter to a friend – only out of convention. He himself very much preferred the unaccompanied form.

The fact that these sonatas were intended for his own use makes them the most personal pieces in his œuvre. It is no surprise that here we find many movements with the word cantabile in their character indications. Four of the sonatas included here open with an andante cantabile. Tartini was strongly influenced by literature, in particular poetry. He usually read from the writings of Metastasio, Petrarch or Tasso before starting to compose. Quotations from these writings are often included in his manuscripts. These are not illustrated in the music, though. Even so, the character indication of the second movement of the Sonata IV in C, grave, perfectly suits the motto of this movement: “Tormento di quest’anima” (torment of this soul). The opening movement of the Sonata VI in E minor has the motto “Senti lo mare” – Listen to the sea.

Three sonatas include a short movement with the title aria del Tasso, the tune sung by Venetian gondoliers to the eight-line stanzas of Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata. Tasso was one of the poets Tartini admired, but the inclusion of a gondoliers’ song says much about his view on naturalness. As one author has written: “For Tartini, following the so-called musica naturalis of the ancient Greeks and the “music of the nations”, the term popolare is equivalent to “simple”, and “simplicity” is the main feature of nature. In his writings, the concept of nature frequently occurs in opposition to artificioso, i.e. artificial and unspontaneous.” From that angle, Tartini’s views on naturalness, which are central in his musical thinking, are perfectly illustrated in these piccole sonate.

The Sonata XII in G opens with an aria del Tasso, and the third movement is called Canzone veneziane. In the Sonata XVII in D the aria del Tasso is the third movement, which is followed by a furlana (forlana). According to New Grove a forlana is “a lively north Italian folk dance, associated particularly with Venice; it became an aristocratic French court dance and instrumental air, flourishing from about 1697 to 1750. It was an energetic courtship dance from the Italian province of Friulia, a Slavonic region controlled by the Venetian republic, and therefore may have had its roots in Slavonic dances”. It is not far-fetched to explain its inclusion by the fact that Tartini was born in Istria, which is now part of Slovenia.

Apart from all their interesting features and background, these sonatas can be enjoyed as they come. They are often virtuosic; Tartini frequently uses double stopping, moves quickly from the low to the high register and includes many brilliant runs. This is great music, technically but also in the way of expression. The performer is on his or her own, and needs to analyse these sonatas thoroughly in order to do them justice. That is what Lavinia Soncini has done, given the nature of her performances. Technically her performances are impressive, but what makes this recording especially admirable is the expressive depth of her interpretation. We come very close here to the heart of Tartini’s musical thinking and feeling.

This is undoubtedly one of the best recordings of baroque violin music that I have heard recently, and a special recommendation is well deserved.

Johan van Veen
www.musica-dei-donum.org
twitter.com/johanvanveen

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