From May 19th to 21st 2026, the FWF WEAVE International Project “Tartinians in Europe. The School of Nations and its Networks” hosted an international conference devoted to 18th century violin culture at the Meerscheinschlössl at the University of Graz. At its core lay the world surrounding the violin: the relationships between pupils and teachers, the presence of patrons and the music market, the work of printers and the emergence of different national traditions, which jointly helped shape a truly European violin culture. The papers explored topics such as violin pedagogy and treatises, compositional principles, patronage networks, the mobility of musicians and the ways in which social and political contexts influenced education, careers and repertoire, including the new perspectives offered by digital tools for studying these interconnected histories.
The three days unfolded as a journey through this universe. The first day was largely devoted to broader questions of historiography and to the formation of violin traditions, schools and repertoires, setting the scene for the following sessions and opening the discussion on how violin culture developed across Europe. The second day moved closer to the core of teaching and transmission, focusing on pupils, manuscripts, rules of composition and performance practice, as well as introducing digital approaches to mapping the networks of knowledge and the circulation of ideas. The third day widened the lens again, looking at international exchanges, treatises from different regions, issues of virtuosity and gender, and the complex role of patronage in enabling artistic careers and transnational mobility.
Music was constantly present alongside scholarly debate. Concerts and lecture recitals offered the opportunity to experience first-hand the sound world evoked during the presentations, from the dialogue between violin and flute in eighteenth-century repertoire in the concert “Violin and Traverso in Tartini’s Europe. Violinistic Reminiscences in the 18th-Century Flute Repertoire” with Stefano Bet (traverso) and Lukas Frank (harpsichord), to reflections on bowing, expression and style in Italian music of the period in the lecture recital “‘Di questo appoggio così leggero...’ The Art of the Single Bow Stroke in Tartini and other Italian Composers” by Ensemble gamma.ut (with prof. Susanne Scholz, Manako Ito, Alejandra Segovia – violins, Hagar Girsai – viola, Ala Korzeniewska – cello, Christian Prohammer – harpsichord). The atmosphere in Graz was both concentrated and convivial, with intense discussions continuing also during the breaks, shared visits to the exhibition on eighteenth-century violin didactics curated by the Archivio Musicale Luca Moretti, and informal encounters that linked specialists from different backgrounds and generations.
For the “Tartinians” project, the conference was a particularly important milestone. It provided a space to share some of the project’s first results, to test new research questions and to engage in open dialogue with experts from various disciplines. This exchange helped refine methodologies, deepen interpretations and to establish the “Tartinians” research group within a wider international conversation on violin culture and musical knowledge in eighteenth‑century Europe.