It turns out Charlie Daniels wasn't the first musician to find out that the devil plays the fiddle. Join us for a story from the classical music world.

Editor's Notes: Kunkel's Musical Review was a large-format music periodical published in St Louis, Missouri, in the 1870s and 1880s. For 25 cents, it boasted, you got $3.50 worth of sheet music. The 1882 issue I've just been given contains a number of forgettable songs and one certified hit, 'Kathleen Mavourneen'. All of the songs that are in German have been translated into English, and all of the English-language songs have German lyrics provided. There are also stories about musical celebrities. My issue contains this story, suitable for Halloween.

Giuseppe Tartini, the founder of the brilliant Paduan school of violinists, was born at Pirano in 1692, and died at Padua in 1770. At the age of about twenty, after having obtained some renown as an able fencer and duelist, he became a victim to the tender passion, the object of his adoration being a young lady who was related to Cardinal Cornaro, bishop of Padua. He married her clandestinely, but the marriage was soon noised abroad, and, on the one hand, his own parents, highly incensed, withdrew the regular allowance they had made him (he was then a student at law of the University of Padua), and on the other the cardinal lodged against him a complaint of abduction and seduction.

Warned of his danger, Tartini fled toward Rome, leaving his wife in Padua, and took refuge with a near relative who was a monk and Prior of a monastery at Assisi. Tartini spent two years in concealment here, and whiled away his time by the ceaseless study of the violin. The organist of the monastery, who was a fine musician, also initiated him into the mysteries of harmony and composition.

An accident divulged his whereabouts. Upon a holiday he was playing a violin solo in the choir of the church, when a gust of wind blew aside the curtain which concealed him from the public gaze. An inhabitant of Padua, who chanced to be in the church, recognized him and divulged the secret of the place of his concealment. In the two years that had elapsed, however, the bishop of Padua had cooled down and Tartini was allowed to return and again join his wife, who during all this time had been ignorant of his whereabouts. Shortly afterwards he left Padua for Venice, taking his wife with him. THere he heard the celebrated Florentine violinist Veracini. The bold play of this famous virtuoso astonished him, and revealed to him the great possibilities of his instrument. Not wishing to cope with this artist, whose superiority he immediately recognized, he left Venice on the morrow, sesnt his wife to his brother at Pirano, and withdrew to Ancona, where he began a new course of study. He created for himself a new method, and, by means of constant observations, established the fundamental principles of the art of bowing which have since served as a basis for the modern schools of bowing. His persistent and intelligent labors soon made of him the best violinist of his age. Absolute accuracy of pitch, a broad and pure tone, a free and bold style of bowing, and a wonderful technique, joined to an incomparable boldness and elegance of style, were the characteristics of his playing.

Tartini became a prolific composer of concertos and sonatas, the most famous of which is doubtless the one entitled 'The Devil's Sonata'. The history of this composition was told by Tartini himself to Lalande, the astronomer, who gave it to the public in the following words:

'One night, in 1713,' said he, 'I dreamt that I had made a compact with the devil, and that he was in my service; all my undertakings succeeded completely, my wishes were anticipated and, indeed, always surpassed by the services of my new servant. I took it into my head to hand him my violin to see whether he would succeed in playing me fine tunes; but great was my astonishment when i heard a sonata so strange and beautiful, executed in so superior and artistic a style that I had never even imagined anything that couldb e compared to it. I was so much surprised and pleased that I lost my breath. I was awakened by this violent sensation. I immediately took up my violin, hoping to remember and note down a part, at least, of what I had just heard, but it was in vain. The piece I then composed is doubtless the best I ever wrote, and I still call it 'The Devil's Sonata'; but it is so far beneath what had so impressed me that I should have broken my violin and forsworn music forever, had I been able to make a living otherwise.'

You're dying to hear this now, right? I'm warning you: musical tastes were different in 1749. Here it is.

You might prefer to hear Charlie Daniels instead.

DG

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