"The Devil's Sonata". Sonaten, Pastorale & Variationen für Violine solo

"One night I dreamt that I had made a pact with the devil...I was so overcome that I stopped breathing and awoke gasping... The piece I then composed is without doubt my best, and I still call it The Devil's Sonata," said the great seventeenth-century violin virtuoso, prolific composer and famous teacher Giuseppe Tartini. Four of his most dazzling works, including a set of variations drawn from L'arte del arco, make up this CD, all played without basso continuo just as Tartini intended.

"We have learnt to take virtuosity for granted with Manze." Gramophone.

Andrew Manze plays a violin by Joseph Gagliano, Naples, 1783; bow by Gerhard Landwehr, Heemstede, 1987.