If you’re a big classical music fan like myself, you’ve undoubtedly heard the spooky and bizarre story of Tartini’s, “The Devils Trill”. For those of you who haven’t, here is the story told by Tartini himself:
“One night, in the year 1713 I dreamed I had made a pact with the devil for my soul. Everything went as I wished: my new servant anticipated my every desire. Among other things, I gave him my violin to see if he could play. How great was my astonishment on hearing a sonata so wonderful and so beautiful, played with such great art and intelligence, as I had never even conceived in my boldest flights of fantasy. I felt enraptured, transported, enchanted: my breath failed me, and I awoke. I immediately grasped my violin in order to retain, in part at least, the impression of my dream. In vain! The music which I at this time composed is indeed the best that I ever wrote, and I still call it the "Devil's Trill", but the difference between it and that which so moved me is so great that I would have destroyed my instrument and have said farewell to music forever if it had been possible for me to live without the enjoyment it affords me.”
Mesmerized by the devil’s brilliant and awe-inspiring playing, Tartini attempted to recreate what he had heard. However, despite having said that the sonata was his favorite, Tartini later wrote that it was "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."
If you haven’t yet listened to this masterpiece, drop everything you are doing and go listen to it! This piece still makes me weep everytime I listen to it. Anyway, I thought this would be an interesting story to share with the forum because it reminds me of the story of Ramanujan.
“One night, in the year 1713 I dreamed I had made a pact with the devil for my soul. Everything went as I wished: my new servant anticipated my every desire. Among other things, I gave him my violin to see if he could play. How great was my astonishment on hearing a sonata so wonderful and so beautiful, played with such great art and intelligence, as I had never even conceived in my boldest flights of fantasy. I felt enraptured, transported, enchanted: my breath failed me, and I awoke. I immediately grasped my violin in order to retain, in part at least, the impression of my dream. In vain! The music which I at this time composed is indeed the best that I ever wrote, and I still call it the "Devil's Trill", but the difference between it and that which so moved me is so great that I would have destroyed my instrument and have said farewell to music forever if it had been possible for me to live without the enjoyment it affords me.”
Mesmerized by the devil’s brilliant and awe-inspiring playing, Tartini attempted to recreate what he had heard. However, despite having said that the sonata was his favorite, Tartini later wrote that it was "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."
If you haven’t yet listened to this masterpiece, drop everything you are doing and go listen to it! This piece still makes me weep everytime I listen to it. Anyway, I thought this would be an interesting story to share with the forum because it reminds me of the story of Ramanujan.
“And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming.”
(This post was last modified: 2018-04-05, 05:36 AM by TheRaven.)
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The story of Ramanujan is very similar to the story of “The Devil’s Trill”. Ramanujan was a self taught genius with no formal education. Despite this, his genius still continues to make contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, and countless other areas in math. The “spooky” part about his story is that he claimed that all of his mathematical genius was taught to him through his dreams by his family’s goddess. This is only a dent of his wondrous life. Here are links that will provide more info: