Art Collage JANG: Interesting Music Story: 1. Devil's Trill Sonata, Giuseppe Tartini

Friday, October 14, 2022

Interesting Music Story: 1. Devil's Trill Sonata, Giuseppe Tartini

How are you?

I start a new music program “Interesting Music Story” from today.

This program is organized by selecting music and introducing the stories related to the selected music, for various music genres such as classical music, jazz, pop, world music, and new age.

I selected “Classical Music” as the first music genre, and the first music to be introduced today is “Devil's Trill Sonata” by Giuseppe Tartini.

It's not uncommon for composers to create new works by accidentally inspired, but there are always interesting stories around them obsessed with creation. Such is the case with “Violin Sonata in G minor” by Giuseppe Tartini.

Giuseppe Tartini

The “Violin Sonata in G minor”, better known as the “Devil's Trill Sonata”, is a solo violin piece by Giuseppe Tartini, born after he dreamed of making a deal with the devil for his soul. It is the composer's most famous piece, and an extremely difficult challenge for even the most accomplished performers due to its technically difficult passages.

Tartini allegedly told the French astronomer Jérôme Lalande that he had a dream that the devil appeared to him and asked him to be his teacher. In his dream, Tartini handed his violin to the devil to test his skill, and the devil played a powerful yet beautiful and captivating performance with skillful technique. The composer felt his breath taken away at the performance of the devil, so unique and outstanding.

Statue of Tartini, Piran, Slovenia

He woke up and swore that he would recreate what he had heard in his dream. However, he later wrote that "the composition I wrote were so inferior compared to what I had heard in my dreams, that I would have broken my violin and abandoned music forever if I could have been able to make a living by any other means."

In other words, although the composer considered the “Devil's Trill Sonata” to be his best work, he always felt that his work was too inferior compared to the devil's performance he had heard in his dream.

This sonata was not published until 1798 (or 1799), almost thirty years after the composer's death, and became the basis for Cesare Pugni's 1849 ballet “Le Violon du diable” and Chopin's “Prelude No. 27”.