The Lucifer of Liège (Le génie du mal) by Guillaume Geefs; Picture by Luc ViatourThe Devil's Trill Sonata (Il Trillo Del Diavolo), also known as the Violin Sonata in G minor, is a composition for solo violin by an Italian composer and violinist named Giuseppe Tartini (1692~1770), who was said to be inspired to write it after he met the Devil in his dream.
According to the interview accounts by a French astronomer and writer Jérôme Lalande, Tartini dreamed in 1713 that the Devil stood next to his bed and tried to possess his soul by making a compact. To challange the Devil, Tartini handed out his violin to the Devil and asked him to play it. Surprisingly, the Devil immediately played an exquisitely beautiful and ethereal music with such a great skill that Tartini listened with utter astonishment and shock.
When he woke up, Tartini instantly began to write down the Devil's Trill Sonata from his dream, trying to recapture the Devil's music. However, despite the sonata's reception and success, Tartini lamented that his music was very inferior to what he had heard.
He even writes, "The sonata I composed at that time was certainly my best, and I still call it the Devil’s Sonata, but this composition is so far beneath the one I heard in my dream, that I would have broken my violin and given up music altogether, had I been able to live without it."
The sonata itself is infamous for its technical difficulty.
Although the sonata is called the Devil's Sonata, it is very beautiful. I can only imagine the real music behind Tartini's dream and inspiration...
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