Tartini
started his career as a teacher and concert master in 1715 in Venice, where he
moved with his wife. During carnival he travelled a lot and played in different
orchestras and theatres. The support of the wealthy Venetian Giustiniani
family, where he was teaching, enabled him in 1721 to take up the position of
first violin and concert master in the famous orchestra at the Basilica di
Sant'Antonio in Padua. He stayed there for over forty years and they allowed
him to give concerts and travel all over Europe.
He wrote
over 150 concertos for violin and orchestra, sonatas for cello and almost 200
sonatas for solo violin. His most famous piece of music is still the Devil's Trill Sonata (Il trillo del diavolo), which was
preserved together with an anecdote about the vivid dreams he had in 1713 in
the monastery in Assisi and in which the Devil himself challenged him.