studies.
The story of Tartini's dream, and his motive for writing the "Devil's
Sonata" is told in various ways and with many additions. Tartini told
the tale himself to the astronomer Lalande, who relates it in the
following manner in his "Italian Travels." "One night in the year
1713," said Tartini, "I dreamed that I had made a compact with the
Devil, and that he stood at my command. Everything thrived according
to my wish, and whatever I desired or longed for was immediately
realised through the officiousness of my new vassal. A fancy seized me
to give him my violin to see if he could, perchance, play some
beautiful melodies for me. How surprised I was to hear a sonata, so
beautiful and singular, rendered in such an intelligent and masterly
manner as I had never heard before. Astonishment and rapture overcame
me so completely that I swooned away. On returning to consciousness, I
hastily took up my violin, hoping to be able to play at least a part of
what I had heard, but in vain. 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 Paris Conservatory Library owns the manuscript
of the "Devil's Sonata," which was published many years later (in
1805), under the title of "Il Trillo del Diavolo." This sonata has
become one of the show-pieces of leading violinists, such as Joachim,
Laub, and others. One writer speaks of it as a "piece in which a
series of double shakes, and the satanic laugh with which it concludes,
are so dear to lovers of descriptive music." Its title alone almost
ensures its success beforehand. The listener is, however, less
impressed by the hidden diabolical inspiration than by the wonderful
technic.

[Illustration: Tartini's Dream. From painting by James Marshall.]

Strange to say, this composition actually aided Tartini to obtain the
position of director of the orchestra in the Church of St. Antony at
Padua, in 1721. Before this time, however, he heard in Venice the
famous violinist Veracini, whose achievements in bowing impressed
Tartini so much, that he left Venice the next morning for Ancona, where
he pursued the study of his art, unmolested, for seven years. It was
here that he created a new method of playing, which, particularly as
regards the bowing, was the