Dream Of The Devil.
The Italian violinist Giuseppe Tartini (1692 -1770), threatened with arrest for eloping with a 15-year-old girl, Elisabetta Premazone, sought shelter with the Franciscan friars at assisi. One night in the monastery he dreamt he had sold his soul to the devil, who in return played a violin sonata of incredible beauty.
Tartini later tried to recapture the sonata he had heard in his dream. The Result, The Devils Trill sonata, was, he felt, only a shadow of the dream music. But violinists ever since have felt the sonata - with its intricate trill in the last of its four movements deserves its name, only because it is fiendishly difficult to play.
