Xconfessions Vol. 18

Giuseppe Tartini (1692 – 1770) was a Venetian Baroque composer and violinist. Tartini was born in Piran, a town on the peninsula of Istria, in the Republic of Venice (now in Slovenia) to Gianantonio – native of Florence – and Caterina Zangrando, a descendant of one of the oldest aristocratic Piranese families. It appears Tartini's parents intended him to become a Franciscan friar and, in this way, he received basic musical training. He studied law at the University of Padua, where he became skilled at fencing. After his father's death in 1710, he married Elisabetta Premazore, a woman his father would have disapproved of because of her lower social class and age difference. Unfortunately, Elisabetta was a favorite of the powerful Cardinal Giorgio Cornaro, who promptly charged Tartini with abduction. Tartini fled Padua to go to the monastery of St. Francis in Assisi, where he could escape prosecution. While there, Tartini took up playing the violin.

Jeffrey Jacob has been described by the Warsaw Music Journal as “unquestionably one of the greatest performers of 20th century music,” and the New York Times as “an artist of intense concentration and conviction.” Mr. Jacob received his education from the Juilliard School (Master of Music) and the Peabody Conservatory (Doctorate) and counts as his principal teachers Mieczyslaw Munz, Carlo Zecchi, and Leon Fleisher. Since his debut with the London Philharmonic in Royal Festival Hall, he has appeared as piano soloist with over 25 orchestras internationally including the Moscow, St. Petersburg, Seattle, Portland, Indianapolis, Charleston, Saõ Paulo, and Brazil National Symphonies, the Silesian, Moravian, North Czech, and Royal Queenstown Philharmonics and recently the London Symphony, New Jersey Philharmonic, The Cuban National Symphony, and the Royal Scottish National Symphony.