Tartini's compositions are very numerous, consisting of above a hundred
sonatas, and as many concertos. Among them is the famous "Sonata del
Diavolo," of the origin of which Tartini himself gave the following
account to the celebrated astronomer Lalande:--
"One night, in the year 1713, I dreamed that I had made a compact with his
Satanic Majesty, by which he was received into my service. Everything
succeeded to the utmost of my desires, and my every wish was anticipated
by my new domestic. I thought that, on taking up my violin to practise, I
jocosely asked him if he could play on this instrument? He answered, that
he believed he was able to pick out a tune; when, to my astonishment, he
began a sonata, so strange, and yet so beautiful, and executed in so
masterly a manner, that in the whole course of my life I had never heard
anything so exquisite. So great was my amazement that I could scarcely
breathe. Awakened by the violence of my feelings, I instantly seized my
violin, in the hope of being able to catch some part of the ravishing
melody which I had just heard, but all in vain. The piece which I composed
according to my scattered recollections is, it is true, the best I ever
produced. I have entitled it 'Sonata del Diavolo;' but it is so far
inferior to that which had made so forcible an impression on me, that I
should have dashed my violin into a thousand pieces, and given up music
for ever in despair, had it been possible to deprive myself of the
enjoyments which I receive from it."
Time, and the still more surprising flights of more modern performers,
have deprived this famous sonata of anything diabolical which it may once
have appeared to possess; but it has great fire and originality, and
contains difficulties of no trifling magnitude, even at the present day.
That process of mind, by which we sometimes hear in sleep a beautiful
piece of music, an eloquent discourse, or a fine poem, seems one of those
mysterious things which show how fearfully and wonderfully we are made. It
would appear that there are times when the soul, in that partial disunion
between it and the body which takes place during sleep, and when it sees,
hears, and acts, without the intervention of the bodily organs, exerts
powers of which at other times its material trammels render it
incapable.--What powers may it not exert when the disunion shall be total!
(From an interesting paper on "the Violin," in the _Metropolitan_.)
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