while we're talkin about violinists, this is a particularly crazy piece. the original composer, Tartini, had a dream where the devil visited him and said he'd trade his soul for the greatest violin piece of all time. he took the deal and the devil played this for him, and when he woke up he wrote it down.

now, the devil probably didn't actually visit him and he probably didn't really sell his soul. dreams are fuckin weird and you rarely even have control over what goes on in them. i've heard of a lot of artists getting songs practically delivered to them during dreams in a multitude of different ways (vinny of red vox interacted with david bowie in a dream and heard a song over a speaker that he wrote down right after). it makes for a really interesting story, though, that this brutal yet beautiful song is straight from the devil.

the musician playing it here, Ray Chen, plays it extremely well and ends up shredding his bow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkX8YyA4Wp4