The Devil's Trill Sonata

What lead me to posting about this?

I wrote a review about Nodame Cantabile a few days ago.

I was listening to Ravel's Bolero today because I wanted to hear other works of this musician as he was played by Nodame in the Paris story.

I liked the violin piece played by the orchestra member in one version I saw that I suddenly remembered that there was a violin sonata featured in another anime I've been meaning to write a review of for more than 3 years already - "Yami no Matsuei" (or Descendants of Darkness - sadly I think its still unfinished till now).

I first found the video made by Vanessa Mae.

I also heard the version done by Christian Fatu. Now even if Vanessa's music video just replayed the part of the sonata which is the obvious crowd-pleaser, I have to say its nice seeing a modern music video of such a difficult piece. Therefore this is the one I am putting here as I think it was also the one being used in the anime episode.

Aside from that, there is another arrangement, using a woodwind instrument instead of a violin which I will also include in this post.

What makes this interesting for me is the story behind the sonata's inception.

From wikipedia:

The Violin Sonata in G minor, more famously known as the Devil's Trill Sonata is a famous work for solo violin (with figured bass accompaniment) by Guissepe Tartini  (1692–1770), famous for the piece's being extremely technically demanding.

The story behind "Devil's Trill" starts with a dream. Tartini allegedly said that he dreamed that the Devil/Satan appeared to him and asked to be his servant. At the end of their lessons Tartini handed the devil his violin to test his skill—the devil immediately began to play with such virtuosity that Tartini felt his breath taken away. When the composer awoke he immediately jotted down the sonata, desperately trying to recapture what he had heard in the dream. Despite the sonata being successful with his audiences, Tartini lamented that the piece was still far from what he had heard in his dream. What he had written was, in his own words: "so inferior to what I had heard, that if I could have subsisted on other means, I would have broken my violin and abandoned music forever." It was believed to have been a song that was played in heaven but was banished for its negativity against God. It is also believed that if you played it your soul would belong to the devil forever.



try this link as imbedding has been disabled for the Vanessa Mae video -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ798THmR5Y

for the recorder version:
Christian Fatu's version with piano accompaniment: