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Giuseppe TartiniSaid to be 1713; told to Lalande in the 1760s

Tartini and the Devil's Trill

A violinist dreams he sells his soul to the devil, who then plays more beautifully than anything he has ever heard.

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The dream

Retold in our own words from the sources below, not quoted.

The violinist and composer Giuseppe Tartini told the French astronomer Lalande that one night he dreamed he had made a pact with the devil, who promised to serve him. To test him, Tartini handed the devil his violin.

The devil played a sonata of such beauty that Tartini, overwhelmed, woke and grabbed his own violin to catch what he had heard. He wrote the piece that became known as the Devil's Trill, but said it was far below what he had heard in the dream.

Where the story comes from

The story reaches us through Lalande's travel book, Voyage d'un François en Italie (1769), which retells what Tartini told him near the end of his long life. Lalande dates the dream to 1713, when Tartini was about twenty-one.

The sonata, in G minor, was not published during Tartini's lifetime, and its famous name comes from the story rather than from the manuscript.

How it has been read

Research

Tartini's sense that the dream music was better than anything he could write afterwards is a common experience. Dream researchers note that emotion in dreams is often intense while memory for detail is poor, so what survives waking is the feeling of brilliance rather than the notes themselves.

Questions for your own dreams

  1. Have you ever dreamed of something more beautiful than you could reproduce awake?
  2. What would you be tempted to trade for a talent you admire?
  3. Which of your own gifts do you sometimes treat as if they came from somewhere else?

Had a dream that stayed with you?

Tell us your dream

Sources

Every reading on this page comes from these works. Page references have not all been checked yet; those still waiting are marked.

  1. Joseph Jérôme Lefrançois de Lalande (1769). Voyage d'un François en Italie, fait dans les années 1765 & 1766. Venice and Paris.

    public domain

    • Cited at: account of Tartini, Padua (reference not yet checked)
    • Cited at: account of Tartini (reference not yet checked)

    Retells Tartini's dream as Tartini told it to the author; second-hand.

  2. Deirdre Barrett (2001). The Committee of Sleep. New York: Crown.

    cited, not reproduced

    • Cited at: chapters on music (reference not yet checked)

    Harvard psychologist on dreams and creative problem solving, with historical examples.

  3. Antonio Zadra, Robert Stickgold (2021). When Brains Dream: Exploring the Science and Mystery of Sleep. New York: W. W. Norton.

    cited, not reproduced

    • Cited at: on emotion and memory in dreams (reference not yet checked)

    NEXTUP model: dreaming explores weak, unexpected associations between memories.