What, is no one celebrating the 300th birthday of Pietro Nardini?
Nardini was pupil of violinist Giuseppe Tartini, who found employment at the court chapel in Stuttgart for a few years in the 1760s. Then he returned home to become Kappelmeister to the Grand Duke of Tuscany in Florence.
Nardini met the teenage Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on one of his trips to Italy in 1770-71. This was on the same tour during which Mozart liberated Allegri’s “Miserere” from the Sistine Chapel in Rome, copying it down from memory, though it was forbidden for the music to be distributed elsewhere. (The Pope let it slide.)
If we’re to believe Mozart’s father, Leopold, an accomplished violinist himself, Nardini played his instrument beautifully, but struggled in more difficult passages. A poet, then, if not a virtuoso. He was also criticized for his lack of depth. Hey, we can’t all be Tartini.
Still time to pick up a card and some flowers. It’s 300 candles on Nardini’s ice cream cake. Buon compleanno!
Sonatas for strings
Violin concertos
String quartets